'Massive disconnect': Doctors say Kenney misrepresenting Alberta's hospital situation
A number of Alberta physicians say Premier Jason Kenney's comments on Thursday about the provincial hospitalization situation doesn't accurately represent what's happening in ERs.
They believe Kenney incorrectly normalized the state of emergency care in his COVID-19 availability.
"There is significant stress but it is not out of line with historic trends at this time of the year," Kenney said at the time.
"We've been averaging just under 5,300 total non-ICU inpatients since the beginning of January. In 2018, in January, we peaked at 5,600."
Doctors argue those numbers don't tell the whole story.
"He's a politician and not a health-care professional, so there may not be the full understanding of how capacity works," Dr. Neeja Bakshi told CTV News from Edmonton.
"The acute care capacity, so the non-ICU ward space, is the worst we've seen the entire pandemic. And anytime one area is crunched, the whole system will fall apart, because we're all one big cycle."
Medicine Hat physician Dr. Paul Parks called it a "a massive disconnect for health-care workers when we come in to work every day on the front lines and we're drowning in our big emergency departments and on our wards in the hospitals."
"And the government's messaging to the public is that there's nothing to worry about and everything's fine," he said.
"That disconnect is just demoralizing for patients and for healthcare workers."
The premier seemed to backtrack somewhat during Thursday's press conference when he acknowledged the hospital situation was still too volatile to lessen restrictions.
"We're at, in fact, the highest point in the two years in terms of people in the hospital with COVID," Kenney said. "We see particular stress in some of the large urban emergency wards."
Parks believes Kenney's comparisons are unfair.
"Surge capacity is meaningless if you take every single hospital bed in the province and say, 'we're doing fine, the water level is only neck-high.' It's knee-high in a couple hospitals, and it's way over our heads in most of the big hospitals," he said.
"They're drowning."
Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw added severe outcomes have taxed health-care professionals.
"The burden of disease that Omicron has caused is straining the capacity of the system," she said.
That system is one that added a field hospital in Edmonton this week to keep up with increased demand.
Doctors say keeping staffing levels up-to-par has been "almost impossible" so far in 2022 and there aren't enough rooms to treat and isolate all the patients who are admitted.
"I don't know what he's saying, and I'm not sure he knows what he saying," Parks said. "It's very dangerous to give the public the idea that the pandemic is over and the hospitals are fine, when they are not."
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
'They needed people inside Air Canada:' Police announce arrests in Pearson gold heist
Police say one former and one current employee of Air Canada are among the nine suspects that are facing charges in connection with the gold heist at Pearson International Airport last year.
Why drivers in Eastern Canada could see big gas price spikes, and other Canadians won't
Drivers in Eastern Canada face a big increase in gas prices because of various factors, especially the higher cost of the summer blend, industry analysts say.
Customers disappointed after email listing $60K Tim Hortons prize sent in error
Several Tim Horton’s customers are feeling great disappointment after being told by the company that an email stating they won a boat worth nearly $60,000 was sent in error.
Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter banned from NBA
Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter has been handed a lifetime ban from The National Basketball Association (NBA) following an investigation which found he disclosed confidential information to sports bettors, the league says.
As GC Strategies partner is admonished by MPs, RCMP confirms search warrant executed
The RCMP confirmed Wednesday it had executed a search warrant at an address registered to GC Strategies. This development comes as MPs are enacting an extraordinary, rarely used parliamentary power, summoning one of its contractors to appear before the House of Commons to be admonished publicly for failing to answer questions related to the ArriveCan app.
Woman who pressured boyfriend to kill his ex in 2000s granted absences from prison
A woman who pressured her boyfriend into killing his teenage ex more than a decade ago will be allowed to leave prison for weeks at a time.
Attempt to have murder charge quashed against alleged serial killer dismissed by judge
A motion filed by the man accused of killing four Indigenous women in Winnipeg to have one of those murder charges quashed has been dismissed by the judge – weeks before the start of his trial.
Government proposes new policy for federally regulated employees to disconnect from work
In their 2024 budget, the federal government wants to amend the Canada Labour Code, so employers in federally regulated sectors will eliminate work-related communication with employees outside of scheduled hours. If implemented, this would affect roughly 500,000 across the country.
Earthquake jolts southern Japan
An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.4 hit southern Japan late on Wednesday, said the Japan Meteorological Agency, without issuing a tsunami warning.