Alberta’s 122,000 health-care workers insist on meeting with Health Minister

According to Friends of Medicare, Alberta’s health-care unions presented a letter to Health Minister Jason Copping’s office on Monday, requesting an urgent meeting to discuss a plan to address the staffing crisis.

The plan, the leaders say, must focus on retaining current workers within the public health-care system and recruiting more. Whether it’s a wait for an ambulance, to get a bed in a hospital room instead of a hallway, or waiting for surgery, union leaders say short-staffing is at a crisis-point across the health-care system. Alberta’s health-care unions say they have been sounding the alarm on this issue for a long time and know what needs to be done to fix it.

According to union leaders, that’s why their health-care unions are offering their frontline, practical knowledge to develop a plan to deliver quality public health care to Albertans. This is said to include expanding the public system. Union officials say Alberta can no longer afford failed experiments in private, for-profit health care.

“Fixing the health-care system in Alberta means hiring more staff. There simply are not enough workers in the system to give Albertans the care we deserve. Albertans deserve better than receiving care in hospital hallways or having to wait hours in the emergency room. It’s time for the Health Minister to listen to workers on the front lines,” says Sandra Azocar, Vice President, Alberta Union of Provincial Employees.

“When health-care institutions are short-staffed, they’re unsafe—both for workers and for members of the public. Properly staffing our health-care system is a health and safety issue. The Health Minister needs to develop a plan to ensure that Albertans can access quality public health with staff that can provide dignified care,” adds Bonnie Gostola, Vice President, Alberta Union of Provincial Employees.

“At our hospitals, we’re seeing lower and lower staffing levels while the workload continues to increase. Positions are not being filled, patients are not getting the care they need, wait times are longer and longer. The UCP needs to act fast and address these issues. We need a staffing strategy to fix health care,” exclaims Raj Uppal, President Local 41(Grey Nuns Hospital), Canadian Union of Public Employees.

“The stress caused by short staffing is causing mental injuries to our members and impacting patient care. This government needs to be doing more to improve working conditions so we can retain the professionals we currently have. We need to make Alberta a preferred employer so we can recruit and train more people to take on health care roles. And we are calling for the immediate restart and expansion of mental health and social programs, including harm reduction, to ease the burden on the system,” says Mike Parker, President, Health Sciences Association of Alberta.

“Evidence shows time and again that privatization is bad for patients, employees and public health. Public health care does a better job than privatized health care, with its built-in need to pay for profit margins. This is why use of agency nurses is more expensive than creating full-time, properly paid positions for nurses in public hospitals. It makes no sense to pay the private sector to do a job that public employees, working in public facilities, do better for less,” states Heather Smith, President, United Nurses of Alberta.

“We are in an urgent situation that requires urgent action to deal with the widespread short-staffing, worker burnout, and closures impacting our entire public health care system. This includes putting an end to the government’s failed privatization agenda which is only causing chaos and worsening the dire staffing situation facing our public system. The new Premier and Minister Copping must stop prioritizing further privatization and start focusing on improving access and patient care,” suggests Chris Gallaway, Executive Director, Friends of Medicare.

Meantime, Alberta NDP Health Critic David Shepherd made the following statement in response to Danielle Smith’s recent comments suggesting Alberta Health Services “manufactured” a staffing shortage:

“For the past three years, at every step, the ones making bad decisions that have led to this critical staffing shortage in Alberta’s healthcare system have been the UCP. This government exhausted and attacked doctors, nurses and healthcare workers, driving many out of practice and even out of the province.

“Now, rather than lead, Danielle Smith insults health workers in order to dog-whistle to conspiracy theorists living on the dark web. It’s clear her plan to dismantle Medicare as we know it by undermining and disrupting the public health care system is based on misinformation and a refusal to listen to medical experts and frontline workers. Her plan will only create further chaos and ultimately, a collapse in care.

“We won’t let the UCP shift the blame for their failures onto the tens of thousands of Albertans who have been working around the clock to maintain health care for Alberta families. Albertans deserve better.

“Instead of announcing plans to fire people, an NDP government will focus on our plans to hire back health workers, build new capacity and improve care at all levels, for Albertans today and for future generations.”

by rdnewsNOW Staff

Alberta’s 122,000 health-care workers insist on meeting with Health Minister

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