Alberta’s healthcare system is experiencing unprecedented upheaval. Emergency physicians are sounding these alarms as they report preventable patient deaths and deterioration from hours-long emergency room wait times. Dr. Warren Thirsk, an emergency physician at two Edmonton hospitals, emphasized that systemic factors are undermining Alberta’s healthcare. Here are a few of the issues he laid out in that discussion. He noted that doctors submitted a list to provincial government officials detailing six potentially preventable deaths alongside at least 27 other cases where delays in care exacerbated patients’ conditions.
Dr. Thirsk is a 26-year veteran of the specialty of emergency medicine. He decried how patient care investigations seldom result in real change, as hospitals don’t have the wherewithal to make the recommended changes. He blamed this failure on the provincial health budget not properly reflecting Alberta’s expanding and aging demographic.
“I’ve seen countless patients lying in a hallway in their own excrement, in pain, hungry, no sleep — [for] hours, sometimes days,” Dr. Thirsk stated, echoing a sentiment shared by many in the medical community. He asked members of the public to come forward with their stories of pain enduring packed hospitals. He urged the government to act without delay.
Government Response and Coordination Efforts
With the crisis seriously escalating, Minister of Health Matt Jones has responded to unprecedented times. He pointed to the consolidated operations centres that were established in Edmonton and Calgary. These hubs are meant to expedite the transfer of stable patients from hospitals to other care settings. He ridiculed demands from Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi. Nenshi had called for a command centre to address the disjointed command structure of the province’s healthcare system.
Minister Jones said, “These anonymized instances do not reflect the amazing care our system provides everyday. The men and women on the front-lines of our health-care system are committed to providing the best care possible. He wanted to do something about the challenging narratives emerging from emergency departments. He remained adamant that these examples are not indicative of the state of care in Alberta.
Nenshi was still not satisfied, though. He called on Premier Danielle Smith to reconvene the legislature before its scheduled spring sitting February 24. He said there’s a clear need—and urgent at that—for a government to be transparent about the costs of carving Alberta Health Services into new entities. “People are dying in the waiting room,” Nenshi said, emphasizing the seriousness of the issue.
Public Outcry and Calls for Improvement
Emergency physicians’ first-hand accounts have sparked national public outcry. They’ve raised deep skepticism about whether the provincial healthcare system could ever be enough. Dr. Thirsk’s comments about the normalization of deviant conditions resonate deeply with many of us. They connect with all of those who have experienced months of waiting lists to receive substandard care. In doing so, we’ve made the abnormal normal. We believe it’s simply a momentary era that will quickly subside and get better, he continued to express.
Dr. Thirsk was motivating in her call for systemic reform, and the time for that reform is now. He added, “We’ve been screaming into the wind in the eye of this hurricane of patients, saying, ‘These people are dying. This is not okay.’ His comments summarize the long overdue anger rising within the medical community, as they see professionals out on the frontline whose warnings were ignored.
We applaud Minister Jones for addressing these pressing, front-line patient care challenges. He further dropped the news that the provincial government is working on new initiatives to improve hospital discharge procedures on weekends, evenings and holidays. This new hero project will help take pressure off emergency rooms, as the number of patients using their services keeps climbing.
Training and Recruitment Efforts
Minister Jones recognized the deepening crisis in Alberta’s healthcare system. He boasted that the province leads the country in training and recruiting healthcare professionals and has the best retention plans. He stressed the necessity of these projects in cultivating a strong healthcare workforce that is able to adequately care for patients.
So Minister Jones is betting that this troubling anecdotal evidence isn’t an indication of the overall quality of care. Yet, Dr. Thirsk’s comments expose some fundamental issues that warrant prompt redress. Today’s healthcare leaders are facing a dynamic and increasingly complicated landscape. Only by hearing the voices of frontline workers can we learn to build a more effective, responsive healthcare system.
