Over half a million Albertans don’t have a family doctor, stressed families are waiting for hours in the emergency room with sick children, and frail seniors are living in pain for months, or even years, awaiting much-needed surgery. We expect our government to be urgently working to address these pressing healthcare issues.
But what have Premier Smith and her government been doing for the health of Albertans? Since coming into power, they have hired and fired four different CEOs of Alberta Health Services, paying an estimated $2 million dollars in severance pay for them not to work. The government has dismissed two Alberta Health Services boards of directors, including one appointed under Smith’s leadership. And most recently, Alberta’s auditor general, Doug Wylie, has announced that he will be reviewing procurement and contracting practices within Alberta Health Services and the health ministry. He is responding to allegations of government interference and potential conflict of interest in multimillion dollar deals to buy medications and personal protective equipment, and in awarding expensive private surgical contracts. These allegations have not been proven in court.
While this flurry of newsworthy activity is going on, in the background more expensive structural changes are underway to dismantle Alberta’s healthcare system. Our unified healthcare system was the object of envy for other Canadian provinces such as Nova Scotia and Manitoba who are using our previous healthcare system as an example to reform their own. At the same time, our government is taking a high-functioning single health authority and replacing it with a bureaucratic and fragmented system that fixes none of the problems that everyday Albertans face.
At best, the government is out of touch with the health care needs of Albertans, and why they were voted into power. At worst, they are interested in concentrating power in their own hands, and rewarding supporters and friends. What do we need to do as citizens to redirect the attention of our government to matters that will make a positive difference in our lives?
For one, we should be shouting from the rooftops that the voting public will not tolerate wasteful political and bureaucratic exercises paid from public coffers. We need to contact our Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) and call for an independent public inquiry into how multimillion dollar medical contracts were awarded by Alberta Health Services and the health ministry. Most importantly we need to be asking our government to increase recruitment and retention of healthcare workers, train more nurses and primary care providers, and boost the capacity of publicly-funded hospitals to provide high-quality and timely surgeries.
Our politicians have been elected to improve healthcare access, quality and timeliness for Albertans and we need to remind them of their duty. It is time to send the message to our government that we see what they are doing and it is not what we elected them to do.
