More operating rooms to close over holidays
Patients who need elective procedures at University Hospital must wait
By Jodie Sinnema, Edmonton JournalDecember 5, 2009Comments (25)
StoryPhotos ( 1 )
Elective surgeries will be cut at the University of Alberta Hospital by 40 per cent over the Christmas season.Photograph by: Janna VanDorp, edmontonjournal.comBudget pressures are hitting the front lines at University Hospital, forcing some operating rooms to close for three weeks instead of the usual two weeks over the Christmas holidays.
That means more patients who need elective surgeries for cancer, heart problems or knee and hip replacements will have to wait longer for their operations, said Glenda Coleman-Miller, the hospital's vice-president.
From Dec. 16 to Jan. 6, nine of the 16 operating rooms will be used, cutting elective surgeries 40 per cent for those three weeks.
"The rational behind that was to manage our costs more effectively by spreading out our expenses and to use the advantage of the holiday break schedule for both patients and our hospital staff, including the surgeons," Coleman-Miller said. "This is our normal strategy over the holiday period."
Coleman-Miller couldn't say how much money will be saved. She also didn't know if other hospitals such as the Royal Alexandra, Misericordia or Grey Nuns are also closing their operating rooms for longer periods than usual.
"It's really just reducing the activity," Coleman Miller said, emphasizing that emergency surgeries will still happen, with cancer patients remaining a priority.
Asked how this will affect patients, she said the "same question could be asked every year when we do this strategy, but we're trying to balance out being able to provide the service we need to (offer) in terms of balancing our costs."
Coleman-Miller said the hospital is also considering cutting the operating room schedule for a longer period of time in the summer when operations slow down for 10 weeks in June, July and August. A decision on this will be made early in the new year, she said.
"We're doing out best to maintain the service that we can and respond to our patient needs," ConnieMiller said.
Liberal MLA Kevin Taft said reducing the number of operating rooms contradicts what Premier Ed Stelmach, Health Minister Ron Liepert and Alberta Health Services' CEO Stephen Duckett have insisted, that any cost savings meant to reduce the $1.2billion health deficit won't affect health services.
"This proves the obvious: patient services are being cut," Taft said. "There's no way for Ron Liepert and Stephen Duckett to save the money you're talking about without reducing patient services. This catches Ron Liepert and Stephen Duckett in a bit of a lie."
Taft said any savings through this approach are phoney, since the surgeries will still need to be done eventually.
"None of these surgeries are going away. They're just being deferred and in the deferral, often situations get worse and cost the system more money in the long term," Taft said. "As much as Alberta Health (Services) might spin this as just meeting patients' Christmas schedules, this means that a lot of patients are going to be struggling and limping and suffering through the next several weeks when they really should have had surgery."
Taft said the way to reduce surgical waiting times is by pumping more resources into hospitals, as was done earlier this year at the Royal Alexandra Hospital. However, when the innercity hospital started reducing waiting times for elective surgeries by filling every nursing position and spending money to keep all the operating rooms going fullforce, the hospital was ordered by Alberta Health Services to cut costs by 15 per cent in May to keep spending in line with the previous fiscal quarter. When that happened, surgeries for cancer patients were postponed, along with cataract surgeries and joint replacements.
"These are quick fixes that have longterm problems," Taft said.
David Eggen, executive director of Friends of Medicare, said it's becoming normal for people in the health industry to believe whatever is opposite to what Duckett and Liepert say.
"They talk about reducing wait times and then close beds. They talk about looking for efficiencies and the budget deficit is ballooning geometrically over these past three years and more next year," Eggen said.
A presentation made by three top executives of Alberta Health Services to a B.C. audience in October suggested the health authority could face a deficit up to$1 billion in 201011 on top of the current deficit.
To keep that figure down, Alberta's health superboard voted this week to borrow$220 million for its operating budget.
"It's crazy," Eggen said. "It just seems unreal that they would choose to go to a commercial bank to borrow money for the operating budget of a ministry (that offers) perhaps the most essential service the government provides."
Eggen said the government has ample money in its $13billion Sustainability Fund.
"This seems to be crossing a line on how you would traditionally pay for essential services," Eggen said.
jsinnema@thejournal.canwest.com
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
and Duckett ducks the meeting...
News Columnists / Andrew Hanon
Resident food fight
Quality has been sliced at Stony Plain long-term care facility, families say
By ANDREW HANON
Last Updated: 1st December 2009, 2:02am
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Facebook Digg Del.icio.us Google Stumble Upon Newsvine Reddit Technorati Feed Me Yahoo Simpy Squidoo Spurl Blogmarks Netvouz Scuttle Sitejot + What are these? Alberta Health Services' "ham-handed" money-saving efforts have outraged families of patients in a Stony Plain long-term care facility, who claim management has begun rationing items like cream and sugar.
Barb Goebel says she was floored when her husband Allen, 65, told her two weeks ago that he wasn't allowed cream for his coffee, except at meals.
She said families flooded WestView Health Centre's management with complaints, and milk was quickly made available again to patients for their between-meal coffee and tea.
But Goebel said it's a symptom of a larger problem: substandard food for WestView's residents, who pay $2,000 a month to stay in the public facility.
"For me, it was the final straw," she said yesterday. "I came home and thought, 'I gotta do something.' "
About two dozen people staged a brief demonstration yesterday outside WestView Health Centre, 4405 South Park Dr. in Stony Plain. They had hoped to catch the attention of Alberta Health Services CEO Stephen Duckett, who they believed was meeting with nursing staff at the facility, but he didn't show.
Goebel recalled another resident who used to enjoy a tomato and onion sandwich every evening as a snack, but she said they were no longer made available outside of meal times.
Allen Goebel, who has multiple sclerosis and is partially paralyzed, has lived in WestView for eight years.
Barb said she's complained repeatedly about the meals over the years, saying that residents get no choice on the menu, other than "take it or leave it."
"I've had meals there with Allen, and sometimes it's been so awful I wouldn't eat it. It was just gross. The meat was old and dry."
And now, she says, if they're rationing snack items, it will get even worse.
The families met recently with WestView managers who showed them the list of snacks, disposable cups, etc. and the budget for them.
It amounted to less than $450 per month for each 20-person unit.
But Alberta Health Services' vice-president of food services said the families have misunderstood what's going on.
AHS isn't cutting snacks, Susan McKay said.
It's standardizing them across the province in order to save money by buying in larger quantities.
She acknowledged that there will be a few hiccups and misunderstandings during the transition.
"It's a prudent thing to do," McKay said. "There have been a number of different practices across the province."
She said they're also trying to reduce waste, such as milk and cream that have to be thrown out because it's past its "best-before" date.
"We're not taking it away, but there may be changes with how it's provided."
But Goebel isn't convinced.
She said that on top of the $2,000-a-month fees she pays, she's also on the hook for laundry services ($35 a month), along with her husband's phone and cable.
She's heard rumbling from the staff that as the government looks for more ways to cut health-care spending, there will be more off-loading on patients' families, like charging for toilet paper. "It's really unbelievable," she said.
David Eggen of Friends of Medicare said it's a sign of AHS's "ham-handedness."
"They got a directive from (Health Minister Ron Liepert) to demonstrate costs and savings," Eggen said.
"Then you get something like this, which isn't really a significant cost, but the way it's handled does significant damage to the working and living atmosphere in a long-term care facility."
ANDREW.HANON@SUNMEDIA.CA
Resident food fight
Quality has been sliced at Stony Plain long-term care facility, families say
By ANDREW HANON
Last Updated: 1st December 2009, 2:02am
Email Story Print Size A A A Report Typo Share with:
Facebook Digg Del.icio.us Google Stumble Upon Newsvine Reddit Technorati Feed Me Yahoo Simpy Squidoo Spurl Blogmarks Netvouz Scuttle Sitejot + What are these? Alberta Health Services' "ham-handed" money-saving efforts have outraged families of patients in a Stony Plain long-term care facility, who claim management has begun rationing items like cream and sugar.
Barb Goebel says she was floored when her husband Allen, 65, told her two weeks ago that he wasn't allowed cream for his coffee, except at meals.
She said families flooded WestView Health Centre's management with complaints, and milk was quickly made available again to patients for their between-meal coffee and tea.
But Goebel said it's a symptom of a larger problem: substandard food for WestView's residents, who pay $2,000 a month to stay in the public facility.
"For me, it was the final straw," she said yesterday. "I came home and thought, 'I gotta do something.' "
About two dozen people staged a brief demonstration yesterday outside WestView Health Centre, 4405 South Park Dr. in Stony Plain. They had hoped to catch the attention of Alberta Health Services CEO Stephen Duckett, who they believed was meeting with nursing staff at the facility, but he didn't show.
Goebel recalled another resident who used to enjoy a tomato and onion sandwich every evening as a snack, but she said they were no longer made available outside of meal times.
Allen Goebel, who has multiple sclerosis and is partially paralyzed, has lived in WestView for eight years.
Barb said she's complained repeatedly about the meals over the years, saying that residents get no choice on the menu, other than "take it or leave it."
"I've had meals there with Allen, and sometimes it's been so awful I wouldn't eat it. It was just gross. The meat was old and dry."
And now, she says, if they're rationing snack items, it will get even worse.
The families met recently with WestView managers who showed them the list of snacks, disposable cups, etc. and the budget for them.
It amounted to less than $450 per month for each 20-person unit.
But Alberta Health Services' vice-president of food services said the families have misunderstood what's going on.
AHS isn't cutting snacks, Susan McKay said.
It's standardizing them across the province in order to save money by buying in larger quantities.
She acknowledged that there will be a few hiccups and misunderstandings during the transition.
"It's a prudent thing to do," McKay said. "There have been a number of different practices across the province."
She said they're also trying to reduce waste, such as milk and cream that have to be thrown out because it's past its "best-before" date.
"We're not taking it away, but there may be changes with how it's provided."
But Goebel isn't convinced.
She said that on top of the $2,000-a-month fees she pays, she's also on the hook for laundry services ($35 a month), along with her husband's phone and cable.
She's heard rumbling from the staff that as the government looks for more ways to cut health-care spending, there will be more off-loading on patients' families, like charging for toilet paper. "It's really unbelievable," she said.
David Eggen of Friends of Medicare said it's a sign of AHS's "ham-handedness."
"They got a directive from (Health Minister Ron Liepert) to demonstrate costs and savings," Eggen said.
"Then you get something like this, which isn't really a significant cost, but the way it's handled does significant damage to the working and living atmosphere in a long-term care facility."
ANDREW.HANON@SUNMEDIA.CA
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