A well-known emergency medicine physician has compiled a list of six patients who died waiting for a doctor to attend to them in Alberta’s packed and chaotic Emergency Rooms over the two weeks at the end of 2025 and the start of 2026.
The list, researched by Medicine Hat ER physician Paul Parks and other doctors, also includes close to 30 “critical near misses” that could easily have resulted in additional deaths and some pithy observations about the horrific state of Alberta’s hospital ERs.
It makes distressing reading. All the more so, the former president of the Alberta Medical Association explained, because the anonymized cases listed “truly are only the tip of the iceberg as to the immense suffering that is occurring.”
Dr. Parks said he collated the list, which has now been widely distributed, “with the hopes of spurring clarity on a shared understanding of the provincial crisis we are in.”
But when his effort proved unable to move senior officials of the United Conservative Party Government including Hospital and Surgical Health Services Minister Matt Jones, one of the UCP’s Gang of Four health ministers, to treat the crisis with appropriate gravity, someone leaked the list to TheBreakdownAB site on Twitter/X, which published it Sunday.
From there it spread like wildfire, and for obvious reasons the resulting headlines yesterday quickly reignited the controversy sparked by the death of Prashant Sreekumar, the 44-year Edmonton man suffering chest pain who died after waiting eight hours to see a doctor on Dec. 22 at the Grey Nuns Hospital.
Contacted by journalists, Dr. Parks confirmed he had created the list. He said on social media that while he did not provide it to The Breakdown, “I fully support whoever did, and understand why they would feel it was important to do so.” The list does not include Mr. Sreekumar’s death.
Dr. Parks, who is also president-elect of the Alberta Medical Association’s section of emergency medicine, didn’t mince words in his comments. At one point he called ER hallways and waiting rooms “DEATH ZONES” where “we wonder how many ‘ticking time bombs’ will drop dead when they should be receiving life-saving care in a functional emergency care space.”
And talk about arguing from authority. Dr. Parks quoted a retired charge nurse aged over 100 who had to wait eight hours in Emergency to see a doctor. “She had never seen the health care system like this, including during the time before we had an actual health care system.” (Emphasis added.)
Nurses, probably more than any other medical profession, have seen it all. And a nurse who has lived for more than a century and kept her wits about her has seen even more! Still, this observation begs the question whether Alberta even has an actual health care system any more.
Government spokespeople, predictably, tried to blow off the resulting uproar.
A spokesperson for Acute Care Alberta, the new agency created by the UCP to replace Alberta Health Services’ role administering health care facilities, a move widely seen as setting the stage for privatization of hospitals, told the CBC that “sadly, deaths are not uncommon in the health system.”
“It is erroneous to suggest that all deaths are rooted in system failure,” the statement added – something that, while true, isn’t likely to be the case in the six deaths and multiple close calls cited by Dr. Parks.
Mr. Jones’s press secretary, meanwhile, hid behind privacy legislation to avoid commenting on the anonymized revelations.
And while the government has asked for a judge-led fatality inquiry into the death of Mr. Sreekumar, it seems unlikely similar inquiries will be struck for the other fatalities, let alone some kind of inquiry into the breakup of AHS by the UCP.
In truth, while it is not fully responsible for the disastrous state of health care in Alberta – which has its roots in decades of neoliberal economics everywhere in Canada and failure to plan for population growth by a succession of Alberta Conservative governments over many years – the UCP nevertheless owns this crisis because it is happening on its watch. (This is an iron law of democratic politics – just ask Rachel Notley about oil prices.)
Nevertheless, the UCP has made the crisis worse with its chaotic “refocusing” of the health care system, particularly the breakup of AHS into multiple silos – which seems to have been motivated principally by the desire of Premier Danielle Smith, who holds strong anti-vaccination views, for Trump-style revenge on the health agency for its role in public health measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Meanwhile, yesterday Alberta Medical Association President Brian Wirzba called for the appointment of a single “identified leader with authority to make final decisions on bed management, patient flow, surge activation and transfers across agencies and service providers.”
“Without clear authority, progress will stall when swift decisions are needed most,” Dr. Wirzba accurately said in a statement.
While unlikely to be implemented by the UCP, which is breaking up the health care system for a reason unrelated to its integrated operation – to wit, financialization and marketization of health care to drive profits not health – the sensible suggestions outlined in Dr. Wirzba’s list of priorities would be unlikely to solve this crisis on their own.
It the end, this mess is about capacity – a lack of sufficient beds and medical professionals to serve a population of five million souls. The results of the sustained negligence that led to these shortages could not be fixed overnight even if we had a government that wanted to fix them.
NOTE: This story has been updated to include the information from Dr. Parks that his list did not include Mr. Sreekumar’s death. DJC
Deja vu. When Ralph Klein was premier of Alberta, he did brutal cuts to the public healthcare system, causing needless deaths. People sued the provincial government after their loved ones died. We don’t know what the settlement amounts were, because they were kept secret, but they had to be quite big, because these people ended up much wealthier than they were before. No amount of money can replace the loss of a loved one.
There is a repeat of things, under the UCP. Public healthcare in Alberta has been so badly messed up with by the UCP, because Danielle Smith’s intentions are like her hero, Ralph Klein, in that she wants privatized healthcare in this province. You can bet that people will be suing the UCP for the deaths of their loved ones, due to the UCP tampering with the public healthcare system in Alberta.
Doctors, nurses, paramedics, and others in the public healthcare system in Alberta have said there are issues that need to be addressed, but Danielle Smith and the UCP refused to listen. Instead, Danielle Smith and the UCP are supporting their rich friends, and cozying up to the separatists.
This must be a real surprise for Adriana LaGrange, as she keeps standing up in the Legislature touting that we have never had so many doctors in Alberta and the UCP has done a fantastic job of recruiting an incredible amount more. According to her the most doctors Alberta has ever had. So how could there be a crisis? Perhaps the doctors she is referring to are by chance dentists or dermatologists, not really what is needed in the ER’s?
Something to keep in mind is, that doctors that are registered to practice in Alberta, could be also registered and practice elsewhere. But not in Alberta.
Hello DJC and fellow commenters,
I would not be surprised if Danielle Smith uses this situation to make a move to start selling off at least this division to private interests. She would, presumably, tell the public that the current chaos is the result of public servants being unable to organize the system to provide appropriate care. She will likely also blame hospitals for failing to provide emergency services. She will repeat over and over that systems which are privatized, for example the U S system, have excellent medical care. Unfortunately, she will omit the fact that a great number of Americans cannot afford this “excellent” health care. She likely will try to entice doctors by quietly claiming that a privatized the system will enable them to make more money and have a lesser work load. She will also point to various hybrid systems which have both private and public health care, neglecting to point out that continued under-resourcing of health care in the public system in Alberta probably would result in a worsening situation here. Meanwhile, she will be a hero to the private corporations who are able to move in and make large profits from the public and private systems. Regrettably, many Albertans will believe Danielle Smith’s rhetoric and clamour for private health care which, they likely will realize too late, is unaffordable for them. Health insurance in the U S is expensive, and often the amount that individuals have to pay for their own health care each year before the insurance starts paying for health care (co-pay) is quite high. Everyone has write to let Danielle Smith to let her know that insufficient funding of health care and privatization of it will lead to a decision to vote for a different political party. No guarantee that this will make a difference, only a hope that she will realize that this issue could end her political career.
I am fully expecting Smith to be uttering in a meeting somewhere in the bowels of the legislature, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent Doctor?”
For all you UCP staffers tasked with skulking around Mr. C’s writing, this is a slight deviation of a reference to Henry II vs. Thomas Becket. Read up boys and girls. The erudition will do you good.
Is what pleases the Girlboss, not the law?
Now let’s do public schools. Quietly falling apart, no leadership to address class size and complexity (no the stacked committee doesn’t count, no more than the paper school builds), no new hires in defiance of a legislatively imposed deal due to greasy UCP budget math, teachers constitutionally gagged against advocating for their students, professional certification under threat, retroactive pay unpaid. And Danielle Smith, still feeling threatened by public education, in full bully mode punching down on teachers with the help of her favourite right-wing, private school backing brute-dad podcaster.
I got a real live UCP backbencher on the phone the other day insisting the bad books lined the shelves of the kindergarten classes, the happy teachers got a raise, and the parents are now praising the UCP six ways to Sunday. Oh, and was I a constituent? Cross your fingers, doesn’t count if not.
Sorry, I do realize your column was about healthcare. I get worked up sometimes though and fantasize that the UCP can do joined-up thinking, make the connections between their actions and all the impending crises. My mistake.
The correct term is indeed souls. This is how airlines and ships refer to all people on board. More than that, it is a term to recognize the equality of all people, regardless of social status, wealth or title. Finally, it encompasses the fine line between life and death.
We in the public hear this term when a ship has sunk or an airplane has crashed. Five million souls, regardless of social status, wealth or title, are on board this vessel, one car accident or health crisis away from the fine line that divides life and death. The vessel is already going down.
Eugenics and Alberta go together like hand and glove. Maybe this is part of the plan. Kill off the elderly, weak and sick. Reduce long term care costs. It also fits in nicely with the separatist plans for a superior white Christian population. Check out the APP immigrant requirements. Example –
Health: No serious illnesses, No experimental mRNA injections (10 pts)
So how many more lawsuits are Albertans going to have to payout because of these idiots? I knew of 8 with Klein. It’s not their money so they don’t care.
Alan K. Spiller: It will likely be a lot.
And now, just to make the silly argument that ER problems were due to a spike in flu cases, new information that a new flu spike across the Excited States and Canada, with a new strain of the virus, is happening now and will increase. So then, the old argument will become the new argument all over again. And the undone health “care” system in Alberta will ‘progress’ further into a spiral of neglect and distrust.
Re: capacity, for example, the Holy Cross Hospital and the Salvation Army Grace Hospital beds were lost in Calgary. The loss of acute care beds in Lethbridge is glaring-200 former acute care beds at St. Michael’s General Hospital were lost. Now, Lethbridge is left with half the number of acute care beds with an ever expanding population in the city and surrounding areas. As well, acute care beds in surrounding communities were lost, i.e. Fort Macleod, Claresholm, Picture Butte, Milk River, Vulcan…..to name a few. Yes, a real capacity mess.
And folks keep voting for the ultra right wing authoritarian UCP politics that propagates this, entwined with the drive toward private-for-profit health care? What is really sad about this unfortunate voting behavior is that folks might not become involved/engaged until, they or their loved ones are negatively affected by this mess…too late. Actions/nonactions by this UCP government do, speak louder than words. It comes across as unconscionable and inhumane. Do they care?
Some people cheered in 1998 when Ralph Klein blew up Calgary General Hospital.
https://youtu.be/1Y4zCNv00OQ?si=jyS8loMxUEJZRHon
Caption typo – “Alberta Medical Association President Bian Wirzba”.
Thanks, Lars. Fixed. DJC
Some people cheered in 1998 when Ralph Klein blew up Calgary General Hospital.
https://youtu.be/1Y4zCNv00OQ?si=jyS8loMxUEJZRHon
1. “The Princess of Alberta was shining sulkily, because she thought this doctor had got no business to be speaking out after the day was done—”It’s very rude of him,” she said, “To come and spoil the fun!””
2. Has the Captain Queeg moment finally arrived?:
“He was no different from any other doctor in any other hospital, they were all disloyal. I tried to run the Province properly, strictly by the Thatcher and Reagan playbook, but they fought me at every turn.
They encouraged the commoners to go around scoffing at me, and spreading wild rumors about hospital and emergency room overcrowding, and then “waiting room ‘death zones'”. I was to blame for my own ideologically incompetent decisions, fanning the fires of separatism, encouraging and comforting the cranks and conspiracy theorists, and overall low-grade leadership.
Ah, but the pipelines and the Laurentian elites in Ottawa, that’s, that’s where I had them, they laughed at me and made jokes, but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt, with geometric logic, that a duplicate pipeline to the West Coast can be built and must be built. [She pauses – looked at all the questioning faces that stared back at him, and realizes that she has been ranting and raving]”
3. “sadly, deaths are not uncommon in the health system.” The ‘spokesperson’ forgot to add that the deaths were merely inconsequential eventualities.
Trivial inevitabilities.
And that the right attitude in UCP governed Alberta is the fatalistic oeuvre : “I used to get a big kick out of saving people’s lives. Now I wonder what the hell’s the point, since they all have to die anyway.”
This is not surprising, but hard to accept. This is a profound failure due to human incompetence. The UCP cannot govern this province and is going to drive us to a very sad end. In the meantime, we have to continue witnessing this horrible display of full ideocracy and can do little about it. Danielle Smith will continue lying about it and pretending that we do not know any better, after all she is too busy with separatism.
If Smith and her UCP devoted as much time and energy to managing health care well as they do to trying to manage communications about it, perhaps we wouldn’t have such an unnecessary deaths list now.
They have long been and still seem resistant to any good advise. For instance, making vaccinations easy for those who want them helps avoid clogged hospitals in flu season. Cancelling the first new hospital in Edmonton in decades and not doing anything for almost another decade is not helpful either. Nor is their focus on lucrative private contracts to those well connected with them. Fiddling around with the structure of the health care system recently has created more confusion and less coordination. Also let not forget the UCPs war on doctors and other health care workers.
So unfortunately, there is a now a very long list of reasons why our hospitals have turned into death zones and most of these are bad decisions or actions by the UCP.
Smith and her MLAs and cabinet don’t care about those who die as long as they themselves get the medical treatment they need. Nothing is going to change. Smith wants a privitized system so “friends” can make money. As people die, Smith will blame the public system and people will demand a private system, well at least those who will be able to afford it.
People voted for Smith and her party. Now they will either die because of it or learn to deal with it. If Albertans want a decent health care system they might have to remove Smith and her politicians. If they say they can’t afford to expand the medical system implement a sales tax and use the money strictly for funding health care.