Investment into health-care system showing results despite pushback: province

The Alberta government says it's seeing positive results from investments in the health-care system despite pushback from doctors. Connor Hogg reports.

Alberta’s Minister of Assisted Living and Social Services says the investments made into the province’s health-care system are showing results, despite doctors calling for a state of emergency.

“The reality is that every number that we’re showing is that the decisions that have been made in advance of this flu season have resulted in the metrics we’re looking at going down,” Nixon told reporters at a housing announcement Wednesday. “The measures that we’re putting in place are already having the impact on the system.”

One of those measures, said Nixon, is reducing the number of alternate level care (ALC) patients in the province by 20 per cent in the last six months.

An August report from the Health Quality Council showed that the Sturgeon Community Hospital in St. Albert was 40-per-cent full of ALC patients. The Misericordia followed closely behind at 36.9 per cent.

ALC patients are those in a hospital bed who received acute care, but are now in need of a different form of care which could look like assisted living, long-term or continuing care.

“We’ve already put money into the system, we’ve already invested in those buildings, and we’re going to continue to see that capacity come online, both from the acute care and continuing care side,” said Nixon. “These numbers are just going to continue to get better each and every day.”

But doctors in emergency rooms aren’t convinced that the province is doing enough.

“From my personal and professional experience, things have not changed,” said emergency physician Scott Maclean. “We’re still over capacity in our hospital beds and patients are still waiting prolonged periods to see a physician or get admitted to a hospital.

“On the ground, things have not changed substantially.”

Maclean, who works at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in central Edmonton, said a decline in flu cases has helped waiting rooms go down from 100 people to 50, but they’re typically built to hold 30 people.

He said physicians are carrying 120 to 150 per cent of what they consider a safe patient load.

“They don’t have the capacity to increase those numbers, even if there was physical space … without more space to put patients and more people to look after those patients, there’s not a quick fix,” said Maclean.

A meeting between the Alberta Medical Association (AMA) and Matt Jones, Minister of Hospital and Surgical Health, to discuss solutions to address hospital capacity, is allegedly in the works.

“A meeting is not going to give me a spot to put my next patient, that’s the reality,” said Maclean. We need infrastructure, we need capacity in our system and it’s been ignored for too long

“I think it’s a step, but it’s not going to make meaningful change in the short term.”

An email from the ministry’s press secretary said Jones sent an invitation to the AMA on Jan. 15.

“We will be scheduling a meeting shortly and intend to establish regular working groups to support ongoing collaboration, in addition to the meetings that minister Jones has already held with AMA leadership since being appointed,” said the email.

The Alberta division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), which represents more than 40,000 health-care workers across the province, has launched an online campaign, calling on Premier Danielle Smith to declare a health care state of emergency.

“The first thing to do when something isn’t working or is brought to the point that health care is at (now), is to acknowledge the problem,” said CUPE Alberta’s president Raj Uppal. “We recognize that a state of emergency won’t solve all the problems in health care, but it can definitely help.”

She said a declaration under Alberta’s Health Act would allow the provincial government to temporarily centralize authorities and rapidly mobilize resources.

“It can help expedite funding emergency staffing measures, rapid deployment of beds and equipment across hospitals, and patient transfers,” said Uppal.

The campaign has already collected 9,000 names of Albertans who have sent emails to the premier.

The Alberta Medical Association (AMA) has been calling on the province to declare a state of emergency for weeks following the death of Prashanth Sreekumar who died waiting hours for treatment in an Edmonton emergency room.

As of last week, emergency rooms have been hovering at 102-per-cent capacity.

More to come …

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Connor Hogg