By Charles Lefebvre

United Conservative Party releases healthcare platform

Mar 28, 2019 | 5:48 PM

CALGARY, AB — The United Conservative Party has released its health care platform.

Speaking in Calgary on Thursday, party leader Jason Kenney says his party will cut wait times for surgery, and introduce supports for opioid addiction.

“The NDP’s mismanagement of our health care system has left Albertans waiting in pain for surgery, while also carrying the bill for the most expensive system in Canada,” Kenney said in a news release. “The NDP are spending more while getting less.”

According to Alberta Health Services and the Canadian Institute of Health Information, wait times for procedures have increased. The data says average wait time for open-heart surgery has increased from 14.9 weeks to 22.2 weeks, and knee replacement wait times have gone from 33 weeks to 40.7 weeks.

Kenney says if elected, the United Conservative Party would adopt a similar program to the Saskatchewan Surgical Initiative, with the goal of reducing wait times to no more than four months. It would invite private day surgery clinics to bid on providing government insured surgeries. Kenney says when it was implemented in Saskatchewan, it reduced the number of patients waiting more than three months for surgery by 75 per cent over four years.

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The platform also includes an opioid response strategy, including appointing an Associate Minister for Mental Health and Addictions, and providing funding to the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team to establish an opioid response team.

Kenney adds if elected, the UCP will also only endorse new supervised consumption sites “ if there have been extensive consultations with affected communities, including residents and business owners, and if there is a robust evidence-based analysis of the socio-economic impact of a potential drug consumption site,” according to a news release. They would also consult with communities, police and others about the locations of existing sites to determine if they are in the best locations, or if they can be moved to other locations to reduce the impact of crime and needle debris.