Alberta NDP health critic Dr. Luanne Metz says there's a lack of trust across the health care system under the United Conservative government. Eli J. Ridder/CHAT News

By Eli J. Ridder

Alberta NDP health critic says system ‘moving backward’ under UCP

Aug 15, 2024 | 7:57 PM

New Democratic health critic Dr. Luanne Metz says the Alberta health care system is moving backward under the United Conservative government’s divisive approach.

“We are dividing things right now, rather than pulling things together and listening,” Metz, MLA for Calgary-Varisty, told a town hall in Medicine Hat on Thursday.

“We are moving backward,” she added, in reference to the government’s plan to scrap the current system in favour of four separate health agencies.

“Other places in the world know that the idea is to integrate and coordinate, except for Alberta, we’re going in the opposite direction.”

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The provincial government’s health care restructuring plan will kick off on Sept. 1 with the launch of the mental health-focused Recovery Alberta agency.

“The big issue is that it’s taking all the brains and workforce away from fixing the system to restructuring and setting up new structures. It’s also taking money because this is tremendously expensive,” Metz told CHAT News ahead of the town hall.

“And, of course, we’re going to have more infrastructure and people at the top of the system rather than distributing it through the healthcare system and using the dollars and the people to provide the care that we desperately need,” she added.

“So I’m very much against the idea.”

Metz was joined at Thursday’s town hall by NDP mental health and addiction critic Janet Eremenko, who said issues with the health care system have a compounding effect that has impacted Medicine Hat.

Eremenko said rising rates of homelessness in the city can be traced, in part, to undiagnosed or untreated mental illnesses that are often related to substance use issues.

NDP health critic Dr. Luanne Metz and mental health and addictions critic Janet Eremenko answered questions during a town hall Thursday. Eli Ridder/CHAT News

“There’s something that’s feeling a bit different here in Medicine Hat that hasn’t always been the case,” Eremenko told about 100 people gathered in the library’s theatre space.

She said the solution needs an all-hands on deck approach that includes health care as a “component of that conversation”.

The shortages in the health care system experienced by Albertans are not just related to a lack of funding or number of staff but also the growth of privatization, Eremenko said.

“That’s where a lot of those professionals are going, they’re going into private practice.”

As a question period during the town hall came to a close, former New Democrat MLA Bob Wanner, who represented Medicine Hat from 2015 to 2019, said an NDP government must overcome what he called a “terrible urban-rural divide in this province”.

Wanner, standing up and addressing the pair of MLAs, said the NDP should improve its communication with people outside Alberta’s biggest cities, learning from losses in 2019 and 2023.

Bob Wanner, former Medicine Hat NDP MLA, says the New Democrats need to overcome the urban-rural divide. Eli J. Ridder/CHAT News

“You got to be out here listening to people and telling the stories,” he said.

“The messaging is critical.”

The two opposition MLAs said they will take what they heard from Hatters Thursday night and bring it with them to the legislature.

Metz, Eremenko and the rest of the New Democrats will have their next shot at forming government when the Alberta election is called in 2027.