Now that most of the province’s ambulances and their crews have finally all been transferred to Alberta Health Services, the United Conservative Party Government has decided to transfer them all again, this time to its redundant and unneeded Acute Care Alberta entity.
The changeover will officially take place on April 1, which seems appropriate.
Why is this being done? That was certainly not clear from Health Minister Adriana LaGrange’s news conference yesterday.
According to a canned quote attributed to Ms. LaGrange in her rambling news release, “from the beginning of our refocusing efforts, we’ve emphasized the importance of creating organizations dedicated to specific sectors, allowing health care workers to focus on what they do best. By moving emergency health services to Acute Care Alberta, I am confident it will receive the focused attention needed to deliver the care Albertans deserve.”
Like most of the official explanations for the UCP’s continuing effort to smash AHS to smithereens, this does not make a lot of sense, especially in the absence of any coherent exposition of how shuffling the province’s ambulances off to a new agency that does exactly what AHS did only with more bureaucrats will have any effect whatsoever on the service their overworked paramedics are able to deliver.
If it appears to be anything, yesterday’s announcement looks like a shell game, which the online Merriam-Webster Dictionary describes in a short commentary as “a swindling trick in which a small ball or pea is quickly shifted from under one to another of three walnut shells or cups to fool the spectator guessing its location.” Sums of money are usually involved.
In a response to yesterday’s murky announcement, Health Sciences Association of Alberta President Mike Parker described the plan as being “about changing letterhead, not changing lives.”
Speaking as the leader of the union that represents Alberta’s Emergency Medical Services employees, Mr. Parker observed that “no one calling 9-1-1 is worried about whether it’s EMS or AHS or Acute Care Alberta. They’re worried about who is arriving and how long it’s going to take.” This is, of course, a profound truth, as anyone who have ever needed to call an ambulance understands.
“The government could not articulate how many more staff will be added to the system,” Mr. Parker observed in a short video distributed to media.
The government news release talks of investing more in EMS services, buying “upgraded vehicles and equipment,” and creating yet another new agency to manage services that used to be shared relatively seamlessly within AHS, but Mr. Parker noted that “they don’t know when these ambulances will be ordered, when they will arrive, or where they will be deployed.” Or who will operate them, it should be noted as well.
However, the government release re-announced EMS funding first announced in in last month’s budget.
Mr. Parker – whose union is in contract negotiations with AHS – called on the government to treat paramedics with more respect. “Invest in staff. Pay them better, treat them better. Retain them, recruit them, and above all, respect them.”
But beyond revenge for AHS’s public health measures during the pandemic – a personal hobbyhorse of Premier Danielle Smith since long before she has publicly contemplated a return to politics – one goal of the deconstruction of AHS is widely seen as a way to make it easier to privatize the public health care services it provides.
As for the timing of yesterday’s non-announcement, that is a little easier to crack. Still mired in scandal, coping with a couple of fractious caucus members, having lost one of its raisons d’être with the resignation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and painted into a corner by the behaviour of Ms. Smith’s hero, Donald Trump, the UCP needs to look busy.
Meanwhile, yesterday’s newser meant Ms. LaGrange had to field reporters’ questions about Premier Smith’s nutty idea last week to get rid of the off-brand Turkish-made children’s acetaminophen the government bought for dubious reasons in 2022 by pawning it off on war-torn Ukraine.
Ms. Smith’s scheme to embarrass Mr. Trudeau during a brief national shortage of children’s pain meds became a continual thorn in the side of the UCP when the stuff turned out to be too thick to safely administer to infants, improperly packaged for use in Canada, and the subject of a questionable and controversial $70-million deal.
The embarrassment grew more acute when the shortage soon evaporated, just as the feds said it would. Millions of bottles are still sitting around in storage in Alberta nearing their expiry date and many more have never been delivered by the Turkish manufacturer.
So “Tylenot,” as the stuff came to be known, is a gift to this province’s political commentators that just won’t quit giving!
Say what you will about the health minister, though, she’s a trooper, always willing to look foolish to defend her boss.
Asked why the government would send the stuff to Ukraine if it couldn’t be used here, Ms. LaGrange explained that these are “good quality drugs” and they administer pain medicine to kids through fatter tubes in Europe. “Our lines are smaller than what is used in Europe and in other countries where these products are being used.” So all should be well.
What a relief!
At some point even UCP supporters are going to start to notice all the reshuffling isn’t improving health care. Its already fairly clear the UCP has wasted a lot of money with all its ideas about how to “improve” health care. It even seems to have become a lucrative cottage industry for some well connected private companies.
I am surprised a bit they still have that unused and apparently unwanted Tylenol still kicking around. Perhaps it seemed like a good idea to them at the time, but so much for owning the Liberals.
I suppose sending it to Ukraine may be a solution. They sometimes say, what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger, although I’m not sure if it applies in this case.
Our lines are smaller than what is used in Europe and in other countries where these products are being used.”
If ever one needed evidence of ignorance used to distract from malice …
The UCP continues to make things worse for Albertans, and they simply don’t care. They have a following who are very oblivious to all that the UCP are doing wrong.
DJC, fellow commentors, or anyone who knows someone with knowledge of procurement of government stationary….
re: changing letterhead
Having worked for a short while in a recycling facility (propane fumes drove ME out)
One of the items that I found wasteful to the extreme was the pricey paper that was used by the ‘higher-ups’ ,that had to be changed every time there was a change of management etc.
Given the UCP government’s proclivity for changing department heads, titles, reverses, etc. etc. Has anyone ever stopped to ask just how much money taxpayers are shelling out for all these changes and who is benefiting from all the printing business. It seems like they are the only ones that would be benefitting from all the changes that have happened in the last 2 years.
>>>>concerned citizens <<<<
A. Lagrange/ fatter tubes in Europe?? Are you $&_=$^&€ kidding?? Has she been studying with Dr Oz?
This person as health minister is as bizarre as 'roadkill jr.'
Ignorance isn't bliss if you are dealing with people's lives.
That blaseè attitude is abhorrent, and repulsive.
Bat shit crazy.
B.C. still needs more paramedics, so if things aren’t to your liking move to B.C.
It’s all aligned to take place when the premier returns from genuflecting to MAGA Republicans in Florida, because isn’t that where right-wing Maple MAGA political leaders should spend most of their time during the harsh Canadian winter, instead of say, doing their paid jobs and answering questions in the legislature?
Happy birthday to Alberta’s April Fool! The joke’s on us. Alberta’s UCP government is going to make our health facilities magically change hands.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/edmonton/article/alberta-transferring-ownership-of-health-care-properties-april-1/
Just part of process behind selling the buildings and the services in them to wealthy Americans, who believe health is not a right, but a lucrative money-maker? We’ll know for sure when we see “Smith’s” (no relation, just ironic) on the side of our ambulances, just like in the scoop-and-dash days of the 1960s. Fun times, when ambulance companies listened to the civic dispatchers on the radio, and tried to beat the competition to the call. Calls were assigned to companies for fairness, but whatcha gonna do when the patient is gone, already on their way to the hospital in someone else’s rig? Forget about paramedics and EMTs back then. Those days were more of a stretcher-in-a-van situation. Private is 110% better, amirite?
Sometimes I wonder if we have a government or if somehow we have a reality show about the destruction of Health Care.
These people have no idea of reality and still keep making changes just so they can justify their jobs. La Grange should be working a demolition company.
It is obvious Ms. LaGrange does not have a foggiest clue what she is doing, just following the stupid leadership of Dingy Smith. The Infrastructure Minister may as well pave hundreds of more acres of land so the ambulances will have a place to park. Having more Paramedics and ambulances may be a nice idea, but that is not where the problem is. ER wait times in Edmonton and Calgary are consistently long, normally ranging from 5 to 8 hours during slow times and 10 to 12 hours or more on weekends. This so called help is really not doing anything to help.
On another related topic, Ms. LaGrange and Jason Nixon decided seniors and those on AISH no longer get free eye examinations, along with a reduced reimbursement to eye doctors to manage glaucoma. This was done without any consultation with eye doctors just simply a UCP slash. Naturally eye doctors are pissed off with this, but having to pay out of pocket to see a doctor about a medically necessary disease also violates the spirit of the Canada Health Act. The UCP can spend hundreds of millions on hockey parks in Edmonton and Calgary but can’t afford to look after seniors eye health.
OA: Some of those seniors will fall down stairs because of their cataracts and cost the system bazillions, but who cares? Certainly not the UCP. DJC
Old Albertan, you raise an interesting point. The government is concerned about slow ambulance response times, so superficially it seems reasonable that more ambulances would help. A big reason we have those slow response times, however, is that after an ambulance arrives at a hospital, the crew is required to stay with the patient until he/she is admitted to hospital, which can take hours. Thus, like you said, the real reason for the slow ambulance response times is the slow ER time.
In her presser, LeGrange erroneously referred to intravenous lines when she meant feeding tubes. Seems like a former health care aid should’ve at least heard of the difference between IV lines and feeding tubes. The eyebrow raise on the paramedic behind her when she says this is telling.
David, you nailed it when you said it seems to be a shell game. That’s exactly what it is and the sole purpose is to make it easier to funnel taxpayer dollars into UCP pockets.
Wanna buy some good quality drugs? Our lines are too small but we were in a rush to get a deal done didn’t think to check Nice job Adriana. The Turks saw you coming. Maybe Smith could find supersized tube owners to peddle the stuff to on her self promoting MAGA land tour
What about transferring hospitals, selling them for pennies on the dollar, like Klein did and then renting them back as Smith has promised. At an high cost to taxpayers? Isn’t that privatization of healthcare? Where is the intelligence in that?
It’s called the pee 3 program, much loved by Neo Cons.