Dr. Paul Parks says emergency rooms are Alberta’s health-care system on the verge of collapse. It threatens to soon swamp the already overwhelmed hospitals. Currently, the majority of these facilities are over capacity and dangerously understaffed. Both Dr. Parks and Dr. James Talbot, along with University of Calgary health law professor Lorian Hardcastle, attribute this looming disaster to the policies enacted by the United Conservative Party (UCP) government.
At this moment, the UCP government is actively trying to dismantle and recreate Alberta Health Services (AHS). This step has incurred blistering criticism from public health policy wonks. AHS used to be hailed as one of the five most integrated health-care systems on earth. Now, experts say it’s fallen victim to an extreme and needless rework. As Dr. Parks stated, what we’re seeing today is a “perfect storm” of challenges that’s brewing right now in the healthcare sector.
Unfortunately, low immunization rates throughout Alberta exacerbate the crisis, increasing pressure on hospitals. Dr. Talbot highlights the detrimental impact of these low rates, stating that “no health-care system can produce enough beds when immunization rates are low.” He says these low rates are due to the Smith government’s ideological opposition to public health taught in schools, discouraging promotion of vaccines.
In the meantime, other hospitals such as Calgary’s South Health Campus and Rockyview General are now under the stress of shouldering massive patient volumes. Data from the Reports indicates that 20.6% and 20.3% of their beds are filled by alternate level of care (ALC) patients. This chronic ambivalence is resulting in delays in admitting people who require critical care.
Clarifying that she was speaking personally and not for the CDC, Dr. He mentioned, “At times, we have 60 admitted patients that truly need to be on the floors. There is no room to take care of anyone, and the ambulances won’t stop coming.” He stressed that if the crisis continues to worsen, patients will be waiting in masses. “And there will be 70, 80, 90, 100 patients out in the waiting room, waiting to go in,” he remarked.
In light of the crisis, Dr. Parks is moving to change that. She intends to conduct an Alberta-wide series of town halls to educate the public on the stresses that are ensuring the health-care system’s collapse. To that sentiment, Dr. Talbot can only agree. She contends that the UCP provincial government adopted policies that foster this wild west atmosphere.
Professor Hardcastle criticized the UCP’s approach, stating, “They have created the perfect storm of factors that led to this poorly performing, toxic health-care system.” She noted that the first reactions to the reorganization of AHS were mostly negative from every health policy expert we’ve talked to.
Now experts in health policy are raising questions about the rationale behind the UCP government’s drastic changes to AHS. “If you look back to when the reorganization was announced, there was a resounding ‘Why are we doing this?’ from experts who research health policy,” Hardcastle noted.
