Alberta's health minister says help is coming for children's hospitals
Alberta's health minister says help is coming for children's hospitals
Alberta's Health Minister Jason Copping gives an update in Edmonton, Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2021. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson)
Alberta Health Minister Jason Copping says help is on the way to deal with strain on the province's two children's hospitals as they deal with a rise in respiratory illnesses.
A surge in patients at Alberta's Children's Hospital prompted Alberta Health Services to redeploy staff to the hospital from a facility that provides respite care for chronically and terminally ill children.
Health officials have said the Calgary hospital and the Stollery Children's Hospital in Edmonton have been operating at or above 100 per cent of their normal capacity during the past month.
"Help is coming,'' Copping said Monday during a news conference on another topic.
"Our system is under strain, there's no doubt about that. This is not just unique to Albertans children's hospital(s). We're seeing impacts across the entire country.''
Children's hospitals across Canada have seen a surge in patients, including those affected by COVID-19, flu and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.
Alberta Health Services, which delivers health care in the province, also set up a heated trailer outside the emergency department at Alberta Children's Hospital last month to help with crowding and weather conditions.
Copping said there are some signs that the situation could soon improve.
"We may be hitting the peak of this current flu that's circulating,'' he said, adding data from schools shows student absentee rates are on a downward trend and wastewater data for COVID-19 shows it's stable.
He said the province is still working to add resources to the health system.
Copping said there's no immediate plan to replicate what's happening in Ontario by postponing pediatric surgeries or bringing in outside agencies to help.
"We are not hearing any of that right now,'' he said.
Opposition NDP Leader Rachel Notley called the surge in pediatric cases at Alberta children's hospitals alarming.
"These children need our help,'' she said during question period.
Notley then asked Premier Danielle Smith what she would do to prevent pediatric surgeries from being cancelled.
"We already know that the wait in emergency rooms is way too long,'' Smith said in response. "That's part of the reason I appointed Dr. John Cowell as chief administrator (of Alberta Health Services) so we can be making these decisions in a very rapid way.''
Smith said she expects to have something more to say on the issue as early as Tuesday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 5, 2022.
Convicted murderer Daniel Jolivet, in prison for the past 30 years, has maintained his innocence since the day he was arrested. W5 reviews the evidence he painstakingly assembled while behind bars. W5's documentary 'Buried Evidence' airs Saturday at 7 p.m. on CTV.
The massive white orb drifting across U.S. airspace has triggered a diplomatic maelstrom and is blowing up on social media. A look at what's known about the balloon crossing the U.S. and what isn't.
The oldest preserved vertebrate brain has been found in a 319-million-year-old fossilized fish skull that was removed from an English coal mine over a century ago.
In the field of cancer treatment, nothing is more important than diagnosing and treating the problem as quickly as possible — but according to new survey data, about one in four Canadian cancer patients report that they are still experiencing cancelled or postponed appointments.
A train derailment and resulting large fire prompted an evacuation order and a declaration of a state of emergency in an Ohio village near the Pennsylvania state line on Friday night, covering the area in billows of smoke lit orange by the flames below.
An Edmonton man who received a ticket from the city under the phase 2 residential parking ban earlier this week says his street has finally been plowed — five days after his vehicle was ticketed.
Marc, Seth and Zacary James are the Melisizwe Brothers, and they performed at Jasper Place High School on Friday as part of Edmonton Public School Black History Month celebrations.
Technology in Alberta that is expected to allow doctors to more accurately and effectively treat cancerous tumours with radiation enters clinical trials next week.
A man who took part in four traffic-stopping protests in Metro Vancouver in an effort to save old-growth forests has been given a conditional sentence and six months' probation by a provincial court judge.
The mayors of Port Coquitlam and Port Moody want Nav Canada — the organization that creates flight paths for airports across the country — to pause its plans for a new YVR arrivals route that will direct many large airplanes over their communities.
With all of the Maritimes still under extreme cold warnings Saturday morning, more than 34,000 households and businesses are without power, as of 11 a.m.
The first North Atlantic right whale to be entangled in connection to Canada’s lobster fishery in over five years has been successfully rescued by marine mammal rescue responders in the United States.
A man who took part in four traffic-stopping protests in Metro Vancouver in an effort to save old-growth forests has been given a conditional sentence and six months' probation by a provincial court judge.
An emergency room doctor on Vancouver Island is calling on the leadership of the health authority to resign, saying harassment by Island Health officials is prompting doctors to abandon the region amid a critical shortage of health-care workers.
After being charged with speeding by a city-operated photo radar device, a Toronto family was able to successfully fight the charge in court largely due to one small detail.
Torontonians appear to be returning downtown in greater numbers but the pace of the city’s economic recovery still lags behind many other North American cities, a new study suggests.
Residents from Quebec to Newfoundland and Labrador are waking up this morning to more extreme cold weather. Emergency officials warned people to seek shelter and monitor for frostbite if they had to be outside overnight, as the temperature across much of Eastern Canada was expected to feel like -40 C to -50 C with the wind chill.
A Quebec university study found that nearly three years of the pandemic have had an effect on the travel habits of Quebecers: even with the partial or complete lifting of restrictions, they increasingly prefer to travel at home. The most recent Cahier des tendances published by the Transat Chair in Tourism at the École des sciences de la gestion de l'UQAM revealed that inflation and health measures hurt many Quebecers.
Waterloo regional police issued a robbery warning Thursday evening after they said two convenience stores and a restaurant in Kitchener were robbed within a 30 minute span.
The suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that was found floating over sensitive military sites in the western United States had been tracked by Canada's government since last weekend as it passed through Canadian airspace, sources tell CTV News.
After months of driving around the city with an advertisement for a kidney donor on her bright red car, Debbie Onishenko will soon be able to rip off the decals as her search has ended.
An investigation that lasted almost two years has resulted in moose hunting violation convictions for six people and a lodge in Red Lake in northwestern Ontario.
Convicted murderer Daniel Jolivet, in prison for the past 30 years, has maintained his innocence since the day he was arrested. W5 reviews the evidence he painstakingly assembled while behind bars. W5's documentary 'Buried Evidence' airs Saturday at 7 p.m. on CTV.
Winnipeg police released a new image of a 31-year-old woman who has been missing since early last year on Friday in the hope it may generate new information on her whereabouts.
A fire destroyed a popular paint and hobby shop in Winkler Thursday afternoon with black smoke prompting Winkler police to close off a stretch of Highway 32 for more than an hour.
Saskatchewan is reacting to the removal of controversial amendment G4 to Bill C-21 by the federal Liberals, which banned certain semi-automatic rifles and shotguns.
Alberta's Health Minister Jason Copping gives an update in Edmonton, Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2021. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson)
