Doctors expected to see sick
youngsters during job action
By clare MARie celano
Staff Writer
Parents were able to rest easy this week, knowing that in most cases their children would still be able to receive medical care from their regular pediatricians despite a job action many area physicians were planning to participate in between Feb. 3-5.
The planned job action was an unprecedented move by physicians in response to what some are calling a malpractice insurance crisis. Doctors, especially obstetricians and surgeons, want to draw attention to the high cost of malpractice insurance and to urge legislators to impose a cap on certain monetary awards granted to plaintiffs who sue physicians.
In a conversation with Dr. Anthony Emanuel, assistant chief of staff at CentraState Medical Center, Freehold Township, the physician, who is affiliated with Pediatric Health, Freehold, told Greater Media Newspapers that for the most part, area pediatricians opted to keep their offices open this week.
"We’re open primarily for sick children," Emanuel said. "We don’t believe it would be right to put children in the middle of a grown-up battle. We don’t want children having to go the (hospital) emergency room for an earache, a sore throat or anything else that could be treated in our offices."
Emanuel said when the pediatricians in his practice heard about the planned job action, they "tossed it around" and came up with their final position.
"We just couldn’t do it," he said of closing the office for several days.
Actually, according to the doctor, each pediatrician had individually come up with the decision to keep the office open.
"It wouldn’t be right to close our (four) offices for three days. We see approximately 30 to 40 children on a ‘sick’ day (at each office). We have seven pediatricians. That’s over 200 children to put in an emergency room at one time. It’s simply not right," Emanuel said.
Emanuel said he informed the emergency room staff at CentraState that a majority of pediatric offices in the area would remain open during the job action.
He said although insurance for pediatric physicians has gone up considerably this year, increasing 30 to 50 percent over previous years, their insurance as a group of medical practitioners is nowhere near what an obstetrician or surgeon would pay. One way Emanuel’s practice has opted to keep insurance rates stable is to eliminate many procedures that would have once been done on a regular basis in the office.
A child needs stitches for a small cut on her knee — not so long ago, mom or dad would have been able to drive her over to the pediatrician’s office and have the child’s regular doctor put in the stitches. Not any more.
Each procedure raises the insurance premium, and the more procedures a doctor does in his office, the higher the premium goes, according to Emanuel.
He said that although pediatricians have opted to keep offices open, they are in full support of their colleagues’ position concerning the job action.
"In my office, we’ve even gone as far as hiring someone specifically to distribute information on the malpractice situation to our patients. We’ve also offered them a letter (to send) to their assemblyman. We want them to know what’s going on."
The doctor said that as a pediatric department, the physicians at CentraState will be contributing funds to the New Jersey Medical Society’s Political Action Committee.
"We just don’t think sending our patients to the emergency room is a viable option," Emanuel concluded, adding that "most parents can barely make it from Saturday to Monday when they have a sick child. How can we ask them to wait three days?"
Pediatric Health has offices in Freehold Borough, Freehold Township, Marlboro and Howell.