Podiatrist pulls services after dispute with hospital THE ONLY podiatrist in the region won’t be doing any more work at Mills Memorial Hospital. Dr. Michael Feist, who is based here in Terrace, is upset that the Terrace Area Health Council, which runs Mills, won’t give him access to its operating room. And Feist says the health council fas had since 1996, when the mat- ter first came to the fore- front, to fix things. “The medical by-laws of the hospital state the only people who shall have privileges are physi- cians and dentists,” said Feist last week. ; He’s asked that the by- laws be modified to in- clude podiatrists as among those who can be granted full privileges. “Right now I have no legal authority to be in there,” said Feist of Mills Memuarial. “The hospital is at risk and I am at risk. I don’t know if my insurance will cover me there.” Feist thought he was on the way to having things changed late last year when he was given privi- leges in December. Those privileges were ‘ revoked in January after the health council, upon looking at its bylaws again, decided that only members of the B.C, Cal- lege of Physicians and Surgeons and College of Dental Surgeons could be given privileges, Much the same hap- pened back in 1996, Feist said. “They’ve had long en- ough to change the by- laws,” he said. “I have tried .to provide care and the reason I'm taking the action I am is that the. system ..wori’t respond.” i the operating room be- cause there is the occa- 2 +. sional time that a patient will need to go under gen- eral anaesthetic. He does acknowledge that before the hospital yanked his privileges again last month, it gave him approval to do some procedures. But these are ones Feist says he can do in his of- fice right now anyway. If Feist had full privi- leges, he estimates he would receive about one operating room day every three months, “They need to get their act together,” said Feist of the situation. Feist would not com- ment directly when asked if giving him operating room time would restrict that given to surgeons who already have privileges. “That’s a very delicate issue,” he said. “There’s no question that OR (operating room) time is very jealously guarded at Mills Memorial Hospital.” Health council chief executive officer Dieter Kuntz says Feist’s privi- leges were indeed pulled because the by-laws on medical staff only refer to people who are members of the physicians and sur- geons and dental colleges. “The council was sym- pathetic but the by-laws first need to be changed,” he said. In any event, the coun- cil has now decided that so much time has past since the by-laws were last examined in 1988 that they should be- reviewed with an eye to making changes, Kuniz continued. It means that Feist’s re- quest for podiatrists to be added to the privileges list will be one of many issues to come up.