By Chris Brown

Nineteen new ICU beds already open: Kenney

May 13, 2022 | 9:53 AM

Alberta’s premier says almost 40 per cent of the new ICU beds promised in this year’s provincial budget are open, and the rest will be open by the end of September.

“This commitment to meaningfully increase capacity is a big boost to Alberta’s health system and part of our promise to add more permanent beds, more staff and more resiliency so that surge capacity doesn’t have to be added during high demand times such as pandemic waves or annual flu seasons when more people typically head to hospital,” Premier Jason Kenney said today.

He said the past two years have shown Canada’s health-care system does not have adequate capacity. He said for years Alberta has had one of the two most expensive health systems in the country, but the lowest per capita number of ICU beds.

During COVID peaks the province was at risk of running out of ICU capacity. Surgeries were paused and delayed to create the necessary surge capacity for COVID patients needing critical care.

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Of the 50 beds promised in the budget, 19 are open now, said Kenney. The United Conservative government pledged $300 million over three years for the ICU beds. The open beds are in Calgary, Edmonton, Lethbridge, Grande Prairie and St. Albert.

“These beds are staffed with new registered nurses, health care aides, unit clerks, respiratory therapists and other allied health professionals who will keep those beds open when needed,” said Kenney. The staff will be redeployed to other areas at times the need for the beds decreases.

The province now has 192 adult general ICU beds.

The premier said the province is also investing in health care by expanding operating rooms across Alberta to provide more surgeries and bring down wait times and providing extra funding to expand the workforce.

Health Minister Jason Copping said the province must recognize the pre-COVID health-care system wasn’t good enough. He said ICUs have been stretched too far in the pandemic

“We need to do better in terms of wait times and in terms of core capacity so the system isn’t strained so severely at peak times, even in a non-pandemic year,” he said.

The NDP’s Shannon Phillips says there is a profound crisis in health care due to the UCP.

“The sight of Jason Kenney standing in front of unstaffed beds hastily pushed into an unfinished room really tells the story of healthcare under the UCP,” said Phillips, MLA for Lethbridge-West and critic for finance. “Thanks to Jason Kenney and the UCP, we don’t have enough staff to operate the beds we already have, or the ambulances we already have, or the primary care clinics we already have.

In a statement, the NDP says there are 21 communities in Alberta right now where the hospital is partially closed due to staff shortages caused by the UCP.

Among them, the party says that in Red Deer, 14 ambulances were backed up in the hospital parking lot waiting to get to the emergency room. Days later the hospital had to divert all of its general surgeries to other communities. Obstetrics has been halted in Barrhead, St. Paul, Rimbey, Sundre, Three Hills, Provost, Wainwright and Whitecourt due to staffing shortages.