AHS no longer in crisis, provincial government says, but there's still work to be done
Monday afternoon, Premier Danielle Smith said Alberta Health Services is not in crisis.
That is a complete about-face from what she said only three months ago when she fired the AHS board and appointed Dr. John Cowell as sole administrator.
"We've developed surge capacity, we're increasing the capacity across all entry points into the system," Smith said.
"Whether it's ambulance, whether it's telehealth, whether it's going to an emergency room, whether it's a surgical wait time, though, those things are tangible, because we're seeing the numbers go down."
Smith made the comments at a press conference releasing Cowell's first interim report on the health-care action plan begun in November.
"We wanted to give a sense of confidence for people because I don't think that they've had confidence in the last two and a half years," Smith said.
Cowell's report outlines actions that have been taken in the past 90 days and highlights others still in progress.
Additions to frontline staff include:
- 114 full-time equivalent nursing staff for emergency-department teams in Alberta's 16 largest hospitals and some suburban hospitals; and
- 127 full-time allied health staff, such as social workers, physiotherapists and occupational therapists.
In addition, AHS will transition 70 current temporary full-time paramedic positions to regular (permanent) full-time.
The province says a further 80 full-time regular paramedic positions will be posted "shortly."
Cowell says the time for an ambulance to arrive dropped from almost 22 minutes to 17 minutes in most urban centres.
It remains over 57 minutes to get an ambulance in most rural areas, though even that is down from a peak of 64 minutes in November.
"That shows that the system's working," Smith said.
"It shows that the health professionals are getting confidence, it shows that there's incremental improvement happening across every one of our health facilities."
Cowell says the single biggest marker for success will be the reduction of surgical wait times.
Right now, there are over 35,500 Albertans who have been waiting up to three times longer than what is considered clinically acceptable for surgery.
That is a drop of five per cent from when Cowell began his work in November, but he admits it is still far too many Albertans waiting for too long.
"This is the most important number that we're driving hard. We want everybody inside the clinically recommended guidelines. It is my hope, and I actually believe, that we will be at zero waiting outside of clinical wait time by March of 2024," Cowell said.
"Nobody will be outside of clinically appropriate wait times. My team and I are absolutely confident that this is achievable."
One of the key ways Cowell expects to achieve that goal is through the increased use of publicly funded surgeries performed in private surgical facilities.
He expects a new facility run by the Enoch Cree Nation to perform 3,000 orthopaedic procedures.
In January, AHS signed a contract with Canadian Surgery Solutions to offer 3,000 additional orthopaedic procedures in Calgary.
Another 3,000 will be performed at a similar facility in Edmonton.
Additionally, Cowell says, 30,000 ophthalmology procedures will be performed at a new private surgical facility once its construction is complete.
NDP health critic Lori Sigurdson says the government has accomplished nothing, claiming the improvements Smith is trumpeting would've happened anyway.
"Today, the UCP still isn't even meeting their own targets for surgical capacity," Sigurdson said.
"What progress they are claiming in emergency rooms is largely due to the seasonal retreat of respiratory illnesses."
Dr. Tom Noseworthy of the O’Brien Institute for Public Health doubts any provincial government working alone can effectively solve the health-care dilemma.
"I would caution anybody to believe that this is going to fix the waiting-list problem in Alberta, because it simply will not. It will address the backlog problem period," Noseworthy said.
"The federal and provincial governments need to get their shoulders behind this one to fix it. It's a long-term, generational requirement to fix it. The tools are in place to do so. But simply injecting money, I'm absolutely opposed to doing that because it creates false hopes. They fix the problem, then a month or two down the road, it's only back yet again."
The provincial health minister did not address how much the changes so far have cost, nor how much the changes planned for the coming year will cost.
Jason Copping did hint that Tuesday’s provincial budget would contain substantial increases in health-care funding.
As well, the announcement came on the same day that Alberta became the seventh province in Canada to sign on to the federal-provincial health-care plan.
That will see $24 billion transferred from Ottawa to Alberta over the next 10 years.
(With files from The Canadian Press)
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Two killed after collision with truck on Hwy. 417 near Limoges, Ont.
Ontario Provincial Police say two people were killed after a car and a transport truck collided in the westbound lanes of Highway 417 near Limoges, Ont. on Tuesday afternoon.
Houston braces for flooding to worsen in wake of storms
High waters flooded neighborhoods around Houston on Saturday following heavy rains that have already resulted in crews rescuing hundreds of people from homes, rooftops and roads engulfed in murky water.
Canadian doctor concerned new weight-loss drug Wegovy may be used inappropriately
As Wegovy becomes available to Canadians starting Monday, a medical expert is cautioning patients wanting to use the drug to lose weight that no medication is a ''magic bullet,' and the new medication is meant particularly for people who meet certain criteria related to obesity and weight.
‘We made them safer and more fun’: Here’s what’s new about e-scooters
Electric scooters (e-scooters) have been gaining popularity in the capital and this season comes with some changes and updates.
Hulk Hogan, hurricanes and a blockbuster recording: A week in review of the Trump hush money trial
Crucial witnesses took the stand in the second week of testimony in Donald Trump's hush money trial, including a California lawyer who negotiated deals at the center of the case and a longtime adviser to the former president.
A Chinese driver is praised for helping reduce casualties in a highway collapse that killed 48
A Chinese truck driver was praised in local media Saturday for parking his vehicle across a highway and preventing more cars from tumbling down a slope after a section of the road in the country's mountainous south collapsed and killed at least 48 people.
Grandparents killed in wrong-way crash on Hwy. 401 identified
A 60-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman killed in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 earlier this week have been identified by the Consulate General of India in Toronto.
Police officer hit by driver of fleeing vehicle in Toronto
York Regional Police say they are continuing to search for a suspect in an auto theft investigation who was captured on video running over a police officer in Toronto last month.
Canadian Auger-Aliassime reaches first Masters final in Madrid with another walkover
Montreal's Felix Auger-Aliassime has advanced to his first ATP Masters final, and he hasn't had to play all that much tennis to do it.