Alberta health-care system underperforming, documents show; critics blame UCP 'privatization'
Alberta's health-care system is playing catch-up to pre-pandemic times as new documents obtained by CTV News show the system is underperforming and failing to achieve targets it set out for itself.
An Alberta Surgical Initiative (ASI) presentation by Alberta Health Services shows the province not only missed its wait-time reduction target for this current fiscal year, but it doesn't expect to reach the target until the end of the next fiscal year — spring 2024.
Meantime, acute-care sites in Alberta — like publicly owned surgical facilities and hospitals — were expected to perform 282,455 surgeries by the end of the 2022/23 fiscal year, but only performed 245,880 — missing its target by 36,575 surgeries.
For comparison, the province's pre-pandemic baseline was 256,600 surgeries.
So, the province is not only going to miss its 22/23 target, but it's still over 10,000 surgeries from returning to pre-pandemic levels.
"Creating a private surgical centre doesn't create another surgeon, it doesn't create more nurses, it simply moves people out of the public system, and the numbers you have today are showing that -- that they're able to get more surgeries done in private surgical centres and we're not keeping up in the public," said Chris Gallaway, executive director of Friends of Medicare.
“This isn't about access, this isn't about patient care, it isn't about wait lists they claim they're trying to adjust, it's really about using our public dollars to provide profit for private surgical centres."
Earlier this week, health workers shared concerns the situation at a Red Deer hospital is so dire they feel the system will collapse.
"It's creating more chaos in our healthcare and Albertans are the ones who are paying the price, and it is exactly related to this focus that the UCP has on privatizing healthcare," Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley said.
"They're making the problem of overall health-care capacity worse, because they're now stealing those important front-line health-care workers out of the public system and putting them into the private one, where profit is now the fundamental motive."
Health Minister Jason Copping's office says the delays aren't new and it's pleased with AHS reaffirming its commitment to achieve its goals by the end of the next fiscal year.
"We campaigned on reducing surgery wait times after the NDP spent four years watching them get longer and did nothing about them. Reducing wait times is the right goal and we’ll keep working at it until we deliver on our promise to Albertans," Steve Buick, Copping's press secretary, added.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Cargo ship had engine maintenance in port before Baltimore bridge collapse, officials say
The cargo ship that lost power and crashed into a bridge in Baltimore underwent 'routine engine maintenance' in port beforehand, the U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday.
A Nigerian woman reviewed some tomato puree online. Now she faces jail
A Nigerian woman who wrote an online review of a can of tomato puree is facing imprisonment after its manufacturer accused her of making a “malicious allegation” that damaged its business.
Far North police 'dispatch' polar bear stalking schoolyard
Police and local hunters in an Ontario Far North First Nation community have “dispatched” a polar that was showing abnormal behaviour and treating the area as a hunting ground.
Donald Trump assails judge and his daughter after gag order in N.Y. hush-money criminal case
Donald Trump lashed out Wednesday at the New York judge who put him under a gag order that bars him from commenting publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors in his upcoming hush-money criminal trial.
Families shocked after Niagara Falls hotel cancels bookings made year in advance of solar eclipse
After having the foresight to book their Niagara Falls hotel rooms more than a year in advance, several families planning to take in the solar eclipse next month were shocked to find out their reservations had been cancelled.
B.C. rescuers face 'high likelihood' of failure to reunite orphaned orca with pod
The race to reunite an orphaned orca calf that’s stuck in a shallow lagoon with a neighbouring pod has entered its fifth day, and a marine scientist says the clock is ticking.
Video shows police interrupting auto theft in progress outside Toronto home
New video footage obtained by CP24 shows the attempted theft of a vehicle in a North York driveway earlier this month that was ultimately interrupted by police.
Majority of Canadians believe in life after death: Angus Reid survey
A new survey from the Angus Reid Institute has found that a majority of Canadians believe in some form of life after death, a proportion that has held steady for decades.
MyPillow, owned by U.S. election denier Mike Lindell, formally evicted from Minnesota warehouse
A court ordered the eviction Wednesday of MyPillow from a suburban Minneapolis warehouse that it formerly used.