Disbanding Alberta Health Services’ super-board would be disruptive but decisions on how the province’s medical system is run should be made more locally, say health advocates.
Opposition parties have called for a return to regional health authorities, a move Friends of Medicare president David Eggen feels would throw the province’s health system further into chaos.
“We just went through a huge restructuring two years ago,” he said.
“I think we have to take a step back before we just decide to turn it all upside down again — it just seems like an incredible waste of money.”
Instead, Eggen said decision-making authority should slowly be transferred to front-line workers with specific expertise.
“There’s important decisions to be made and maybe the super-board structure is not the best but we have to think twice before (disbanding it),” he said.
“That’s part of why we’ve had so many problems with our health system in the last 10 years — we’ve gone from hundreds of hospital boards to regional boards to nine regional boards to one super-board.
“That kind of change over time is destabilizing.”
The Alberta Medical Association doesn’t have a position on the super-board’s future, said president, Dr. Patrick White, but he agrees decisions need to be done more at the local level.
“We’ve got over 10,000 members and did a survey of the membership a few months ago and only 20 percent of the (doctors) feel they have been involved (in decision making),” he said.
“That’s an alarming figure.”
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Thursday, November 25, 2010
- Tony Franceschini said he is one of the 14 Alberta Health Services board members who is considering resigning from his post after the board decided to let CEO Stephen Duckett go.
“That’s definitely a possibility,” said Franceschini, former president of Stantec and recent bid committee chairman for Expo 2017. He said he is taking Thursday to make a decision. “I’m obviously thinking about it.”
Board member Gord Bontje of Red Deer has already resigned in protest of the board’s decision to let Duckett go, in part because of his refusal to speak with media last week about long emergency wait times.
“Can’t you see I am eating my cookie,” Duckett repeatedly said to the media.
The health superboard’s chairman Ken Hughes, who has decided to remain in his position, said Duckett no longer had the public’s confidence to do his job.
“His ability to carry on and conduct the role as chief executive was compromised by his current circumstances, one of which was that (cookie) incident,” Hughes said Wednesday when Duckett was removed from his position.
Board members Don Sieben of Edmonton and John Lehners of Grande Prairie will also continue their health work.
jsinnema@edmontonjournal.com
“That’s definitely a possibility,” said Franceschini, former president of Stantec and recent bid committee chairman for Expo 2017. He said he is taking Thursday to make a decision. “I’m obviously thinking about it.”
Board member Gord Bontje of Red Deer has already resigned in protest of the board’s decision to let Duckett go, in part because of his refusal to speak with media last week about long emergency wait times.
“Can’t you see I am eating my cookie,” Duckett repeatedly said to the media.
The health superboard’s chairman Ken Hughes, who has decided to remain in his position, said Duckett no longer had the public’s confidence to do his job.
“His ability to carry on and conduct the role as chief executive was compromised by his current circumstances, one of which was that (cookie) incident,” Hughes said Wednesday when Duckett was removed from his position.
Board members Don Sieben of Edmonton and John Lehners of Grande Prairie will also continue their health work.
jsinnema@edmontonjournal.com
Stelmach gov't stands by Duckett's departure
Opposition accuses Tories of political interference
By Keith Gerein And Karen Kleiss, Edmonton Journal November 25, 2010 The Stelmach government made no apology Wednesday for directly instigating the departure of Alberta Health Services CEO Stephen Duckett.
Despite allegations of political meddling and multiple resignations from the AHS superboard, Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky was unrepentant.
He said he was forced to intervene after a video of Duckett dismissing reporters questions by saying he was busy eating a cookie went viral on the Internet, sabotaging government efforts to focus attention on new remedies for the ailing public health system.
The incident also raised questions about whether Duckett could continue to function as leader of AHS, he said.
"As a result, I found it necessary to speak with the board chair and to offer some verbal directions to him and to the AHS board," Zwozdesky said.
"Those directions were to carefully consider and evaluate recent comments made by the CEO ... and to determine if, in the current climate, the ability of the CEO to perform his duties was compromised in any way," Zwozdesky said, adding he personally found Duckett's comments "inappropriate."
"They began to stand in the way of our need to move forward with the things that Albertans really want to be done," he said.
Premier Ed Stelmach said many Albertans wanted the government to remove Duckett from his post.
"The direction provided by the minister to the board certainly reflected the views of Albertans, especially the many that I've heard from," Stelmach told reporters.
"In many cases, they were upset about the comments obviously and also the fact that there was such a focus on personalities. A good plan came together and we just couldn't move forward.
"Now, with the decision reached by the board today, we will be able to move forward with the plan."
That plan was set out moments before Duckett encountered reporters Friday. Known as the "Overcapacity Protocol," it calls for hiring 500 more nurses and opening 81 new beds, bringing the total of new beds to 360 this fiscal year.
While opposition MLAs have been calling for Duckett's dismissal all week, the way the government handled it amounts to political interference, Liberal Leader David Swann said.
He said Zwozdesky's direction to the AHS board has created ambiguity about who is really in control of the health system, and whether Alberta Health Services truly operates at "arm's length" from politicians.
"Who can believe Alberta Health Services is in charge of health care?'" Swann asked. "Why did three members resign? There is no clarity about what their responsibility is and when they are going to be intervened upon."
Swann agreed Duckett had to go, but said the decision should have been based on the overall failures of the health system rather than public reaction to the recent "cookie" incident. He said if Zwozdesky is taking responsibility for pushing Duckett's departure, the government should also take responsibility for all the problems plaguing health care delivery.
"Any of us could have a faux pas with the media. That is hardly cause for dismissal," Swann said. "This, to me, is scapegoating of the first order."
He further suggested the AHS board members who decided not to resign might have been "coerced" to stay to avoid making the government look bad.
All of the opposition parties called for the dismantling of Alberta Health Services.
"It is time not just to get rid of Duckett, but to get rid of the board as well, and make the minister responsible and accountable for what happens in our health-care system," NDP Leader Brian Mason said earlier in the day.
Wildrose Alliance Leader Danielle Smith said the problem was that Duckett was not accountable to the public.
"You can't solve this problem by just hiring a better central planner; you need to dismantle the system," Smith said. "Having a single government monopoly responsible for the purchasing, the provision and the evaluation of the system simply isn't working. We're getting worse and worse service."
David Eggen, director of the advocacy group Friends of Medicare, said Duckett's departure was another example of a "crisis of leadership" for the health system -- a failure the outgoing AHS president and the government must share.
kkleiss@edmontonjournal.com
kgerein@edmontonjournal.com
© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal
Opposition accuses Tories of political interference
By Keith Gerein And Karen Kleiss, Edmonton Journal November 25, 2010 The Stelmach government made no apology Wednesday for directly instigating the departure of Alberta Health Services CEO Stephen Duckett.
Despite allegations of political meddling and multiple resignations from the AHS superboard, Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky was unrepentant.
He said he was forced to intervene after a video of Duckett dismissing reporters questions by saying he was busy eating a cookie went viral on the Internet, sabotaging government efforts to focus attention on new remedies for the ailing public health system.
The incident also raised questions about whether Duckett could continue to function as leader of AHS, he said.
"As a result, I found it necessary to speak with the board chair and to offer some verbal directions to him and to the AHS board," Zwozdesky said.
"Those directions were to carefully consider and evaluate recent comments made by the CEO ... and to determine if, in the current climate, the ability of the CEO to perform his duties was compromised in any way," Zwozdesky said, adding he personally found Duckett's comments "inappropriate."
"They began to stand in the way of our need to move forward with the things that Albertans really want to be done," he said.
Premier Ed Stelmach said many Albertans wanted the government to remove Duckett from his post.
"The direction provided by the minister to the board certainly reflected the views of Albertans, especially the many that I've heard from," Stelmach told reporters.
"In many cases, they were upset about the comments obviously and also the fact that there was such a focus on personalities. A good plan came together and we just couldn't move forward.
"Now, with the decision reached by the board today, we will be able to move forward with the plan."
That plan was set out moments before Duckett encountered reporters Friday. Known as the "Overcapacity Protocol," it calls for hiring 500 more nurses and opening 81 new beds, bringing the total of new beds to 360 this fiscal year.
While opposition MLAs have been calling for Duckett's dismissal all week, the way the government handled it amounts to political interference, Liberal Leader David Swann said.
He said Zwozdesky's direction to the AHS board has created ambiguity about who is really in control of the health system, and whether Alberta Health Services truly operates at "arm's length" from politicians.
"Who can believe Alberta Health Services is in charge of health care?'" Swann asked. "Why did three members resign? There is no clarity about what their responsibility is and when they are going to be intervened upon."
Swann agreed Duckett had to go, but said the decision should have been based on the overall failures of the health system rather than public reaction to the recent "cookie" incident. He said if Zwozdesky is taking responsibility for pushing Duckett's departure, the government should also take responsibility for all the problems plaguing health care delivery.
"Any of us could have a faux pas with the media. That is hardly cause for dismissal," Swann said. "This, to me, is scapegoating of the first order."
He further suggested the AHS board members who decided not to resign might have been "coerced" to stay to avoid making the government look bad.
All of the opposition parties called for the dismantling of Alberta Health Services.
"It is time not just to get rid of Duckett, but to get rid of the board as well, and make the minister responsible and accountable for what happens in our health-care system," NDP Leader Brian Mason said earlier in the day.
Wildrose Alliance Leader Danielle Smith said the problem was that Duckett was not accountable to the public.
"You can't solve this problem by just hiring a better central planner; you need to dismantle the system," Smith said. "Having a single government monopoly responsible for the purchasing, the provision and the evaluation of the system simply isn't working. We're getting worse and worse service."
David Eggen, director of the advocacy group Friends of Medicare, said Duckett's departure was another example of a "crisis of leadership" for the health system -- a failure the outgoing AHS president and the government must share.
kkleiss@edmontonjournal.com
kgerein@edmontonjournal.com
© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal
660 news Calgary
Home News Local
Dr. Stephen Duckett
courtesy Alberta Health ServicesWhat now for AHS after CEO's dismissal?
Kristin Bibik and Ted Henley Nov 25, 2010 08:21:15 AM
0 Recommendation(s)
Alberta's premier and provincial health minister are praising the departure of Stephen Duckett as CEO of Alberta Health Services.
Duckett's job was on the line after he refused to answer questions from reporters last week about health care; instead saying he would rather finish his cookie.
The decision to part ways with the CEO wasn't unanimous though.
Board member Gord Bonjy has already resigned and the board's chair, Ken Hughes, says he expects more resignations in the future.
And not everyone is conviced firing Duckett will fix percieved problems with the health superboard.
David Eggen with Friends of Medicare says it's the government that has brought the state of health care to what it is right now, not Stephen Duckett's cookie.
He adds the government needs to admit they are part of the problem before they can fix the system.
Health minister Gene Zwozdesky says Duckett's depature will not impact the health care system itself.
Dr. Stephen Duckett
courtesy Alberta Health ServicesWhat now for AHS after CEO's dismissal?
Kristin Bibik and Ted Henley Nov 25, 2010 08:21:15 AM
0 Recommendation(s)
Alberta's premier and provincial health minister are praising the departure of Stephen Duckett as CEO of Alberta Health Services.
Duckett's job was on the line after he refused to answer questions from reporters last week about health care; instead saying he would rather finish his cookie.
The decision to part ways with the CEO wasn't unanimous though.
Board member Gord Bonjy has already resigned and the board's chair, Ken Hughes, says he expects more resignations in the future.
And not everyone is conviced firing Duckett will fix percieved problems with the health superboard.
David Eggen with Friends of Medicare says it's the government that has brought the state of health care to what it is right now, not Stephen Duckett's cookie.
He adds the government needs to admit they are part of the problem before they can fix the system.
Health minister Gene Zwozdesky says Duckett's depature will not impact the health care system itself.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Stephen Duckett and AHS part ways
AHS Board Chair Ken Hughes announced Wednesday afternoon the board and CEO Stephen Duckett are parting ways.
Alberta Health Services CEO and president Stephen Duckett dodges reporters' questions about the health system, telling them he's too busy eating a cookie on on Friday, Nov. 19, 2010.
Updated: Wed Nov. 24 2010 18:53:25
ctvcalgary.ca
Alberta Health Services and Stephen Duckett have jointly agreed that now is the time to move on.
The decision comes after Duckett ducked reporters' questions last week, saying he was too busy eating a cookie.
Duckett apologized the next day on his blog.
AHS Board Chair Ken Hughes says both the 14-member board and Duckett jointly agreed that "now is the time to move on."
"We agreed with Dr. Duckett that he would no longer continue to stay on as the CEO because his ability to be effective in that role...we felt was compromised," said Hughes.
One board member, Gord Bontje from Red Deer has resigned and Hughes expects more board members to step down.
Healthcare advocates and the opposition have been calling for Duckett's resignation, saying the cookie comment showed indifference to the massive challenges the health care system is facing.
His dismissal comes as no surprise to Friends of Medicare.
But the group says the finger of blame for his downfall points to both the Tory government as well as to Duckett himself.
"Mr. Duckett took his direction from the health minister and the premier", says David Eggen. "We must not let Mr. Duckett's dismissal deflect the blame from those who are actually responsible for the systemic problems in health care."
Liberal Leader David Swann agrees.
"Stephen Duckett's actions on Friday were inexcusable, but let's not let a viral video distract us from the real problem," Swann said in a written statement.
"Duckett should be only the first to go. Just as Duckett has proven his inability to manage health care, so too have the Premier and his health ministers, past and present," he adds.
Duckett will receive a year's salary in severance pay, along with benefits and moving expenses, a total of nearly $700,000.
Dr. Chris Eagle has been appointed interim CEO of Alberta Health Services.
AHS Board Chair Ken Hughes announced Wednesday afternoon the board and CEO Stephen Duckett are parting ways.
Alberta Health Services CEO and president Stephen Duckett dodges reporters' questions about the health system, telling them he's too busy eating a cookie on on Friday, Nov. 19, 2010.
Updated: Wed Nov. 24 2010 18:53:25
ctvcalgary.ca
Alberta Health Services and Stephen Duckett have jointly agreed that now is the time to move on.
The decision comes after Duckett ducked reporters' questions last week, saying he was too busy eating a cookie.
Duckett apologized the next day on his blog.
AHS Board Chair Ken Hughes says both the 14-member board and Duckett jointly agreed that "now is the time to move on."
"We agreed with Dr. Duckett that he would no longer continue to stay on as the CEO because his ability to be effective in that role...we felt was compromised," said Hughes.
One board member, Gord Bontje from Red Deer has resigned and Hughes expects more board members to step down.
Healthcare advocates and the opposition have been calling for Duckett's resignation, saying the cookie comment showed indifference to the massive challenges the health care system is facing.
His dismissal comes as no surprise to Friends of Medicare.
But the group says the finger of blame for his downfall points to both the Tory government as well as to Duckett himself.
"Mr. Duckett took his direction from the health minister and the premier", says David Eggen. "We must not let Mr. Duckett's dismissal deflect the blame from those who are actually responsible for the systemic problems in health care."
Liberal Leader David Swann agrees.
"Stephen Duckett's actions on Friday were inexcusable, but let's not let a viral video distract us from the real problem," Swann said in a written statement.
"Duckett should be only the first to go. Just as Duckett has proven his inability to manage health care, so too have the Premier and his health ministers, past and present," he adds.
Duckett will receive a year's salary in severance pay, along with benefits and moving expenses, a total of nearly $700,000.
Dr. Chris Eagle has been appointed interim CEO of Alberta Health Services.
Camrose News
By Laurie Callsen / Camrose Canadian
Posted 21 hours ago
Laurie Callsen
Camrose Canadian
Friends of Medicare were in Camrose last week to voice concerns on our provincial health care system's future.
David Eggen and Noel Somerville spoke on the current state of Alberta Health Care and how the new Alberta Health Act (Bill 17) will affect seniors.
Somerville, who is the chairman of the Seniors' Task Force for Public Interest Alberta, wants people to be aware of the pending changes to the Alberta health care system.
Somerville said Bill 17 was first brought up by Ron Leipert near the end of his term as Minister of Health, and was supported by Alberta Health Services CEO Stephen Duckett. According to Somerville, Duckett finds the Nursing Home Act – which requires registered Nurses to work in nursing homes – too restrictive and wants the act changed.
"Can you think just how restrictive that is if you're trying to run a health care system on the cheap?"
Somerville said that the Nursing Home Act is the only law in Alberta that requires 1.9 hours of care per patient, and that 22% of that care has to be administered by a registered nurse.
If Bill 17 is enacted, the Nursing Home Act may not be consolidated into the new Alberta Health Act.
Eggen added in his speech, that health care is not something we should cheap out on.
"The very first thing people say, and they say it over and over again, is that health care costs too much money now. It's eating up the budget and we can't afford a public health system anymore, we have to change the way we do things.
"I say yes, we do need to change, but let's take a look at just how much of the budget health care is eating and is it truly unaffordable anyway."
Alberta spends about three to five per cent of its budget on health care – an average for about 20 years. The health care budget isn't big because the slice of the pie has grown; instead, it's because the rest of the budget is shrinking. There's been an increase in the population by one million, but there's half as many beds as there were 20 years ago.
"Of course health care is expensive, but we have the best quality health care available for ourselves and our families. We want to ensure that we are investing in the future too. It's not something Albertans and Canadians would choose to skimp on if ever we were asked."
Eggen cautioned against the thought that Alberta should have a private and public health care system. Currently, Alberta's health care services are about 70% public and 30% private. Some sectors, like physiotherapy, have slipped from public to private over the years.
Eggen said that while some people say 'I have the money, let me pay for my health care', it doesn't mean the health care venues will work the same way.
Some clinics that allow private care also ask for public funding, or 'double-dipping' as Eggen called it. At the Pro-Vital clinic in Calgary, there is a $4,000 admission fee – which also includes free parking and coffee.
"That's all fine and dandy, but they're taking that $4,000 out of your pocket and they're also billing the Alberta government for the public services they provide inside," said Eggen.
A similar trend is seen in the senior's health system. Somerville said the government is very happy to build continuing care facilities, as long as they don't require a nursing staff. Somerville said that he has spoken to Premier Ed Stelmach about this problem, with little results.
"When I pointed out the lack of long-term care facilities in this province, he (Stelmach) said 'Do you know how much a registered nurse costs the employer these days? … It's about $100,000. This government thinks that it is too expensive to provide nursing care in nursing homes," said Somerville.
At the end of their speeches, both men encouraged the crowd to keep engaged on what was happening in the legislature regarding health care.
"Public health care is a good thing to fight for. It's a good way to build community and to learn about the value of the public good in general.
"Once you learn about the value of pubic health care, you realize the value of other things we hold together as a community, province and nation," said Eggen.
Article ID# 2858624
By Laurie Callsen / Camrose Canadian
Posted 21 hours ago
Laurie Callsen
Camrose Canadian
Friends of Medicare were in Camrose last week to voice concerns on our provincial health care system's future.
David Eggen and Noel Somerville spoke on the current state of Alberta Health Care and how the new Alberta Health Act (Bill 17) will affect seniors.
Somerville, who is the chairman of the Seniors' Task Force for Public Interest Alberta, wants people to be aware of the pending changes to the Alberta health care system.
Somerville said Bill 17 was first brought up by Ron Leipert near the end of his term as Minister of Health, and was supported by Alberta Health Services CEO Stephen Duckett. According to Somerville, Duckett finds the Nursing Home Act – which requires registered Nurses to work in nursing homes – too restrictive and wants the act changed.
"Can you think just how restrictive that is if you're trying to run a health care system on the cheap?"
Somerville said that the Nursing Home Act is the only law in Alberta that requires 1.9 hours of care per patient, and that 22% of that care has to be administered by a registered nurse.
If Bill 17 is enacted, the Nursing Home Act may not be consolidated into the new Alberta Health Act.
Eggen added in his speech, that health care is not something we should cheap out on.
"The very first thing people say, and they say it over and over again, is that health care costs too much money now. It's eating up the budget and we can't afford a public health system anymore, we have to change the way we do things.
"I say yes, we do need to change, but let's take a look at just how much of the budget health care is eating and is it truly unaffordable anyway."
Alberta spends about three to five per cent of its budget on health care – an average for about 20 years. The health care budget isn't big because the slice of the pie has grown; instead, it's because the rest of the budget is shrinking. There's been an increase in the population by one million, but there's half as many beds as there were 20 years ago.
"Of course health care is expensive, but we have the best quality health care available for ourselves and our families. We want to ensure that we are investing in the future too. It's not something Albertans and Canadians would choose to skimp on if ever we were asked."
Eggen cautioned against the thought that Alberta should have a private and public health care system. Currently, Alberta's health care services are about 70% public and 30% private. Some sectors, like physiotherapy, have slipped from public to private over the years.
Eggen said that while some people say 'I have the money, let me pay for my health care', it doesn't mean the health care venues will work the same way.
Some clinics that allow private care also ask for public funding, or 'double-dipping' as Eggen called it. At the Pro-Vital clinic in Calgary, there is a $4,000 admission fee – which also includes free parking and coffee.
"That's all fine and dandy, but they're taking that $4,000 out of your pocket and they're also billing the Alberta government for the public services they provide inside," said Eggen.
A similar trend is seen in the senior's health system. Somerville said the government is very happy to build continuing care facilities, as long as they don't require a nursing staff. Somerville said that he has spoken to Premier Ed Stelmach about this problem, with little results.
"When I pointed out the lack of long-term care facilities in this province, he (Stelmach) said 'Do you know how much a registered nurse costs the employer these days? … It's about $100,000. This government thinks that it is too expensive to provide nursing care in nursing homes," said Somerville.
At the end of their speeches, both men encouraged the crowd to keep engaged on what was happening in the legislature regarding health care.
"Public health care is a good thing to fight for. It's a good way to build community and to learn about the value of the public good in general.
"Once you learn about the value of pubic health care, you realize the value of other things we hold together as a community, province and nation," said Eggen.
Article ID# 2858624
Duckett removed as head of Alberta Health Services
5:00PM
Edmonton / iNews880.com
11/24/2010
The future of Stephen Duckett is no longer in limbo.
"The board... has made a decision that Dr. Duckett will no long serve as President and Chief Executive Officer of Alberta Health Services." The announcement was made by Alberta Health Services' Board Chair Ken Hughes just before 5:00PM Wednesday.
The decision came after a day-long meeting. Executive Vice President of AHS, Dr. Chris Eagle, will be taking over as acting CEO. AHS will now start the process of looking for a permenant CEO.
"The Board would like to thank Dr. Duckett for his dedication to improving Alberta's health system during a challenging time of transition for Alberta Health Services," said Board Chair Ken Hughes in a release sent out Wednesday evening. "His determination to create a strong foundation for AHS will serve us well in the coming years.
"It is also clear that we need to immediately focus on the task at hand, which is to implement as quickly as possible the initiatives made possible by the province's Five-Year funding commitment," said Hughes. "These include opening more continuing care beds, reducing Emergency Department wait times and adding new capacity. Nothing else is more important to the health system right now than focusing on access and quality."
The future of Duckett as CEO has been in question after the controversial "cookie" incident last Friday. Duckett refused to speak to reporters following a key meeting on health care in downtown Edmonton, because he was eating a cookie. He apologized for his actions the next day.
Premier Ed Stelmach went so far as to call Duckett's actions "offensive."
As per his contract, Duckett will still be owed one year's salary of $575,000, plus other benefits.
In a release sent shortly after the announcement, Friends of Medicare's David Eggen said the announcement wasn't a surprise. He added the blame didn't completely rest of Duckett's shoulders.
"Mr. Duckett took his direction from the Health Minister and the Premier", says David Eggen. "We must not let Mr. Duckett's dismissal deflect the blame from those who are actually responsible for the systemic problems in health care." (sj,ks,blb)
5:00PM
Edmonton / iNews880.com
11/24/2010
The future of Stephen Duckett is no longer in limbo.
"The board... has made a decision that Dr. Duckett will no long serve as President and Chief Executive Officer of Alberta Health Services." The announcement was made by Alberta Health Services' Board Chair Ken Hughes just before 5:00PM Wednesday.
The decision came after a day-long meeting. Executive Vice President of AHS, Dr. Chris Eagle, will be taking over as acting CEO. AHS will now start the process of looking for a permenant CEO.
"The Board would like to thank Dr. Duckett for his dedication to improving Alberta's health system during a challenging time of transition for Alberta Health Services," said Board Chair Ken Hughes in a release sent out Wednesday evening. "His determination to create a strong foundation for AHS will serve us well in the coming years.
"It is also clear that we need to immediately focus on the task at hand, which is to implement as quickly as possible the initiatives made possible by the province's Five-Year funding commitment," said Hughes. "These include opening more continuing care beds, reducing Emergency Department wait times and adding new capacity. Nothing else is more important to the health system right now than focusing on access and quality."
The future of Duckett as CEO has been in question after the controversial "cookie" incident last Friday. Duckett refused to speak to reporters following a key meeting on health care in downtown Edmonton, because he was eating a cookie. He apologized for his actions the next day.
Premier Ed Stelmach went so far as to call Duckett's actions "offensive."
As per his contract, Duckett will still be owed one year's salary of $575,000, plus other benefits.
In a release sent shortly after the announcement, Friends of Medicare's David Eggen said the announcement wasn't a surprise. He added the blame didn't completely rest of Duckett's shoulders.
"Mr. Duckett took his direction from the Health Minister and the Premier", says David Eggen. "We must not let Mr. Duckett's dismissal deflect the blame from those who are actually responsible for the systemic problems in health care." (sj,ks,blb)
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Braid: One job lost, another may soon follow
Sherman is out the door and Stephen Duckett could soon follow, cookie in hand, after Alberta Health Services chairman Ken Hughes confirmed Monday that the CEO's future is under discussion.
MLA Sherman leaves the Tory caucus as a folk hero who could now be even more dangerous to the government that ejected him.
Duckett's departure, on the other hand, might be popular after his "I'm eating my cookie" mantra to reporters Friday.
Bluntly put, it looks dreadful to fire an ER doctor who pleads for the welfare of patients, while keeping a system executive who answers serious questions with a jab of his cookie.
Last night, YouTube views of the Duckett cookie video were approaching 90,000, without counting thousands more who watched the Arnold Schwarzenegger parody.
Now the bemused AHS board, every member appointed by the government, is ponderously considering what to do about the cookie monster.
Asked what he thought of Duckett's bizarre comment, Hughes said, "I didn't think it represented the views of Alberta Health Services Board, in terms of the message that was sent."
"It also didn't represent the Dr. Duckett I know and have worked with," Hughes added. "He's made it clear that was his view as well."
In the legislature, Premier Ed Stelmach pretty much kicked Duckett under the bus, I thought, when he said: "Dr. Duckett is an employee of the Alberta Health Services board, and I'm sure that the board . . . as we speak, is looking at all the information that is coming forward and will be making a decision."
Hughes also said: "I am listening to what Albertans say and assessing the circumstances." This could lead to a vote at an AHS board meeting in Edmonton next week, or maybe earlier.
One thing they'll be assessing is Duckett's contract, which awards him a year's salary plus 15 per cent and moving expenses if he's fired (a total of $681,000). But he'd only get pay for time worked if he quits.
Listening to the incessant criticisms of AHS from government, long before the cookie caper that appeared so obviously stress-induced, it almost seems they want him to quit.
This would avoid the political embarrassment of the payout. If that's the game, it could almost make you feel sympathy for the wandering Aussie health economist.
The ouster of Raj Sherman, meanwhile, is sure to be a lingering irritant for the Tories, akin to their self-awarded pay raises and the superficially similar ejection of Fort McMurray MLA Guy Boutilier.
But Sherman's case is actually less like Boutilier's than the firing of Calgary Health Authority boss Jack Davis back in 2008.
During the election campaign that year, Davis dared to demand $115 million from the government, saying Calgary had a serious funding shortfall that was endangering patients and clogging emergency wards.
With full backing of the CHR board, he outlined the dreary statistics of ER problems and people waiting for admission. Just like Sherman, he dared to speak from inside the system about a serious crisis.
Little more than two months after Davis's uprising, the government abolished the regional health boards in favour of the single superboard, and he lost his job.
Few sympathized because of his $4-million payout. But Davis was the last health leader who really put his job on the line for the patients -- until Raj Sherman came along.
And now the Tories have dumped him, too.
Don Braid's column appears regularly in the Herald.
dbraid@calgaryherald.com
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Sherman is out the door and Stephen Duckett could soon follow, cookie in hand, after Alberta Health Services chairman Ken Hughes confirmed Monday that the CEO's future is under discussion.
MLA Sherman leaves the Tory caucus as a folk hero who could now be even more dangerous to the government that ejected him.
Duckett's departure, on the other hand, might be popular after his "I'm eating my cookie" mantra to reporters Friday.
Bluntly put, it looks dreadful to fire an ER doctor who pleads for the welfare of patients, while keeping a system executive who answers serious questions with a jab of his cookie.
Last night, YouTube views of the Duckett cookie video were approaching 90,000, without counting thousands more who watched the Arnold Schwarzenegger parody.
Now the bemused AHS board, every member appointed by the government, is ponderously considering what to do about the cookie monster.
Asked what he thought of Duckett's bizarre comment, Hughes said, "I didn't think it represented the views of Alberta Health Services Board, in terms of the message that was sent."
"It also didn't represent the Dr. Duckett I know and have worked with," Hughes added. "He's made it clear that was his view as well."
In the legislature, Premier Ed Stelmach pretty much kicked Duckett under the bus, I thought, when he said: "Dr. Duckett is an employee of the Alberta Health Services board, and I'm sure that the board . . . as we speak, is looking at all the information that is coming forward and will be making a decision."
Hughes also said: "I am listening to what Albertans say and assessing the circumstances." This could lead to a vote at an AHS board meeting in Edmonton next week, or maybe earlier.
One thing they'll be assessing is Duckett's contract, which awards him a year's salary plus 15 per cent and moving expenses if he's fired (a total of $681,000). But he'd only get pay for time worked if he quits.
Listening to the incessant criticisms of AHS from government, long before the cookie caper that appeared so obviously stress-induced, it almost seems they want him to quit.
This would avoid the political embarrassment of the payout. If that's the game, it could almost make you feel sympathy for the wandering Aussie health economist.
The ouster of Raj Sherman, meanwhile, is sure to be a lingering irritant for the Tories, akin to their self-awarded pay raises and the superficially similar ejection of Fort McMurray MLA Guy Boutilier.
But Sherman's case is actually less like Boutilier's than the firing of Calgary Health Authority boss Jack Davis back in 2008.
During the election campaign that year, Davis dared to demand $115 million from the government, saying Calgary had a serious funding shortfall that was endangering patients and clogging emergency wards.
With full backing of the CHR board, he outlined the dreary statistics of ER problems and people waiting for admission. Just like Sherman, he dared to speak from inside the system about a serious crisis.
Little more than two months after Davis's uprising, the government abolished the regional health boards in favour of the single superboard, and he lost his job.
Few sympathized because of his $4-million payout. But Davis was the last health leader who really put his job on the line for the patients -- until Raj Sherman came along.
And now the Tories have dumped him, too.
Don Braid's column appears regularly in the Herald.
dbraid@calgaryherald.com
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Red Deer Long Term Care
Advocates want new Red Deer care facility to be run by AHS
4:09am
Edmonton / iNews880.com
11/18/2010
Health care advocates want Alberta Health Services to take over Red Deer's newest privately-operated long-term care facility.
The government agency recently shut down two publicly-funded and operated nursing homes and moved residents to Extendicare.
Groups including Friends of Medicare and the Central Alberta Council on Aging say the seniors at Extendicare are being neglected due to a lack of staff.
They say the situation can't continue and the province needs to step in.
Kerry Bales of Alberta Health Services says the agency is monitoring the situation and is working with Extendicare to improve staffing. (The Canadian Press, aw, twd
4:09am
Edmonton / iNews880.com
11/18/2010
Health care advocates want Alberta Health Services to take over Red Deer's newest privately-operated long-term care facility.
The government agency recently shut down two publicly-funded and operated nursing homes and moved residents to Extendicare.
Groups including Friends of Medicare and the Central Alberta Council on Aging say the seniors at Extendicare are being neglected due to a lack of staff.
They say the situation can't continue and the province needs to step in.
Kerry Bales of Alberta Health Services says the agency is monitoring the situation and is working with Extendicare to improve staffing. (The Canadian Press, aw, twd
Rally at East Edmonton Health Centre
10:00am
Reid Wilkins
11/18/2010
The bullseye will be on the provincial health system during a noon hour rally Thursday.
It's being staged by the Alberta NDP at the East Edmonton Health Centre (7910 112th Avenue).
David Eggen, from Friends of Medicare, will be there. He says the Centre hasn't been able to take pressure off other emergency rooms.
"They've been turning away people there since early summer and you know, word is out on the street that there's no services available so people just aren't using that facility. It's a crying shame and a waste of taxpayers money," explains Eggen.
The East Health Centre opened earlier this year. (aw, jrw, twd, ccg)
10:00am
Reid Wilkins
11/18/2010
The bullseye will be on the provincial health system during a noon hour rally Thursday.
It's being staged by the Alberta NDP at the East Edmonton Health Centre (7910 112th Avenue).
David Eggen, from Friends of Medicare, will be there. He says the Centre hasn't been able to take pressure off other emergency rooms.
"They've been turning away people there since early summer and you know, word is out on the street that there's no services available so people just aren't using that facility. It's a crying shame and a waste of taxpayers money," explains Eggen.
The East Health Centre opened earlier this year. (aw, jrw, twd, ccg)
Sometimes real life is stranger than fiction
News Calgary & Alberta
Opposition spits out cookie comments
By DAVE DORMER, CALGARY SUN
Last Updated: November 20, 2010 11:41pm
The mea culpa from Alberta’s health czar for focusing on eating a cookie instead of answering reporters’ questions Friday isn’t passing the taste test among health care critics.
In a blog post Saturday, Alberta Health Services CEO Dr. Stephen Duckett apologized “unreservedly” for his behaviour following a meeting in Edmonton to address shortfalls in the province’s health care system, where he refused comment to several reporters, repeatedly telling them he was too busy eating a cookie to talk as they followed him to an AHS building across the street.
“The meeting made great progress,” Duckett wrote on his blog.
“That success has to some extent been overshadowed by my poor responses to the media afterwards, which I deeply regret and for which I apologize unreservedly.
But the apology was half-baked, said Liberal leader Dr. David Swann, who once again called for Duckett to resign or be fired.
“It’s too little, too late,” said Swann.
“I think we’ve come to the point where Mr. Duckett has lost the confidence of not only the professionals in the system, but also Albertans.”
Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky was more forgiving, saying he accepted the apology.
“It appears to be a sincere apology for some very inappropriate comments that clearly he regrets having made,” he said, adding Duckett will likely not face the axe for the outburst.
“There’s a number of things we have to look at in this scenario, the first and most important thing to me is we get the improvements I’ve asked by Christmastime.
“Let’s go forward to Christmas and see what happens because the emergency room docs are working hard on solutions with us and that’s what the meeting was all about (Friday).”
Friends of Medicare executive director David Eggen also felt the apology was sincere but said Duckett should still be replaced.
“I’ve said since Zwozdesky took over that he needed to start fresh and Duckett is part of the slash and burn health policy from before,” he said.
“If he’s serious about starting fresh then he should replace Duckett.”
Wildrose Alliance leader Danielle Smith said the apology merely highlights ongoing systemic failures.
“They way he dealt with the media just represented an entirely flippant attitude toward the serious nature of the issues we’re dealing with,” she said.
“And his blog doesn’t make it any better because it highlights what the true nature of the problem is, a lack of accountability.”
The AHS superboard should be replaced with regional boards, said Smith.
“We’ve got a single guy at the head of an agency that is responsible for $13 billion in taxpayer money and he doesn’t feel that he has to be accountable to the media or the public, that’s somebody else’s job,” she said.
With bonuses, Duckett earns an annual salary of $744,000.
Duckett was not available for comment Saturday nor was Premier Ed Stelmach.
Opposition spits out cookie comments
By DAVE DORMER, CALGARY SUN
Last Updated: November 20, 2010 11:41pm
The mea culpa from Alberta’s health czar for focusing on eating a cookie instead of answering reporters’ questions Friday isn’t passing the taste test among health care critics.
In a blog post Saturday, Alberta Health Services CEO Dr. Stephen Duckett apologized “unreservedly” for his behaviour following a meeting in Edmonton to address shortfalls in the province’s health care system, where he refused comment to several reporters, repeatedly telling them he was too busy eating a cookie to talk as they followed him to an AHS building across the street.
“The meeting made great progress,” Duckett wrote on his blog.
“That success has to some extent been overshadowed by my poor responses to the media afterwards, which I deeply regret and for which I apologize unreservedly.
But the apology was half-baked, said Liberal leader Dr. David Swann, who once again called for Duckett to resign or be fired.
“It’s too little, too late,” said Swann.
“I think we’ve come to the point where Mr. Duckett has lost the confidence of not only the professionals in the system, but also Albertans.”
Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky was more forgiving, saying he accepted the apology.
“It appears to be a sincere apology for some very inappropriate comments that clearly he regrets having made,” he said, adding Duckett will likely not face the axe for the outburst.
“There’s a number of things we have to look at in this scenario, the first and most important thing to me is we get the improvements I’ve asked by Christmastime.
“Let’s go forward to Christmas and see what happens because the emergency room docs are working hard on solutions with us and that’s what the meeting was all about (Friday).”
Friends of Medicare executive director David Eggen also felt the apology was sincere but said Duckett should still be replaced.
“I’ve said since Zwozdesky took over that he needed to start fresh and Duckett is part of the slash and burn health policy from before,” he said.
“If he’s serious about starting fresh then he should replace Duckett.”
Wildrose Alliance leader Danielle Smith said the apology merely highlights ongoing systemic failures.
“They way he dealt with the media just represented an entirely flippant attitude toward the serious nature of the issues we’re dealing with,” she said.
“And his blog doesn’t make it any better because it highlights what the true nature of the problem is, a lack of accountability.”
The AHS superboard should be replaced with regional boards, said Smith.
“We’ve got a single guy at the head of an agency that is responsible for $13 billion in taxpayer money and he doesn’t feel that he has to be accountable to the media or the public, that’s somebody else’s job,” she said.
With bonuses, Duckett earns an annual salary of $744,000.
Duckett was not available for comment Saturday nor was Premier Ed Stelmach.
Your kind of theatre Ed, since you are writing the script
Premier slams 'theatrics' in healthcare crisis
Last Updated: Monday, November 22, 2010 | 10:44 AM MT Comments101Recommend17.
CBC News
(CBC)
Premier Ed Stelmach says he is tired of what he calls "recent theatrics" in Alberta’s healthcare crisis.
He says instead of assessing blame, Albertans should focus on improving the system.
The premier took the unusual step of releasing the statement Sunday night on his web page, along with an accompanying audio file.
“Albertans are tiring of the recent theatrics which have garnered most of the attention, and quite frankly, so am I,” he said in the prepared statement. ““Right now everyone involved in the health care system must focus on improving the system - particularly the urgent needs in the emergency room situation - and not assigning blame.”
Last week's meeting of health-care professionals dealing with crowded emergency rooms is a good start, Stelmach said.
The meeting was called after ER doctor and Tory MLA Raj Sherman criticized the premier and his government over the emergency room crisis in the province.
He said a long-term strategy must focus on improvements in community and cancer care, mental health and primary care to ensure Albertans have access to family physicians.
Meanwhile health-care advocate David Eggen said the province's top health administrator should be fired after his bizarre comments following the emergency meeting.
Alberta Health Services president Stephen Duckett refused to answer reporters' questions about the meeting — saying he was too busy eating a cookie.
Duckett used his online blog on the weekend to apologize.
“I think that Mr. Duckett was feeling frustrated and he doesn't have a good communications means to tell us what Alberta Health Services is doing in general,” said Eggen, executive director of Friends of Medicare.
“I think this apology is an indication of that secretive and controlled nature that is getting in the way of progress for health care.”
Your kind of theatre Ed, since you are writing the script
Premier slams 'theatrics' in healthcare crisis
Last Updated: Monday, November 22, 2010 | 10:44 AM MT Comments101Recommend17.
CBC News
(CBC)
Premier Ed Stelmach says he is tired of what he calls "recent theatrics" in Alberta’s healthcare crisis.
He says instead of assessing blame, Albertans should focus on improving the system.
The premier took the unusual step of releasing the statement Sunday night on his web page, along with an accompanying audio file.
“Albertans are tiring of the recent theatrics which have garnered most of the attention, and quite frankly, so am I,” he said in the prepared statement. ““Right now everyone involved in the health care system must focus on improving the system - particularly the urgent needs in the emergency room situation - and not assigning blame.”
Last week's meeting of health-care professionals dealing with crowded emergency rooms is a good start, Stelmach said.
The meeting was called after ER doctor and Tory MLA Raj Sherman criticized the premier and his government over the emergency room crisis in the province.
He said a long-term strategy must focus on improvements in community and cancer care, mental health and primary care to ensure Albertans have access to family physicians.
Meanwhile health-care advocate David Eggen said the province's top health administrator should be fired after his bizarre comments following the emergency meeting.
Alberta Health Services president Stephen Duckett refused to answer reporters' questions about the meeting — saying he was too busy eating a cookie.
Duckett used his online blog on the weekend to apologize.
“I think that Mr. Duckett was feeling frustrated and he doesn't have a good communications means to tell us what Alberta Health Services is doing in general,” said Eggen, executive director of Friends of Medicare.
“I think this apology is an indication of that secretive and controlled nature that is getting in the way of progress for health care.”
Last Updated: Monday, November 22, 2010 | 10:44 AM MT Comments101Recommend17.
CBC News
(CBC)
Premier Ed Stelmach says he is tired of what he calls "recent theatrics" in Alberta’s healthcare crisis.
He says instead of assessing blame, Albertans should focus on improving the system.
The premier took the unusual step of releasing the statement Sunday night on his web page, along with an accompanying audio file.
“Albertans are tiring of the recent theatrics which have garnered most of the attention, and quite frankly, so am I,” he said in the prepared statement. ““Right now everyone involved in the health care system must focus on improving the system - particularly the urgent needs in the emergency room situation - and not assigning blame.”
Last week's meeting of health-care professionals dealing with crowded emergency rooms is a good start, Stelmach said.
The meeting was called after ER doctor and Tory MLA Raj Sherman criticized the premier and his government over the emergency room crisis in the province.
He said a long-term strategy must focus on improvements in community and cancer care, mental health and primary care to ensure Albertans have access to family physicians.
Meanwhile health-care advocate David Eggen said the province's top health administrator should be fired after his bizarre comments following the emergency meeting.
Alberta Health Services president Stephen Duckett refused to answer reporters' questions about the meeting — saying he was too busy eating a cookie.
Duckett used his online blog on the weekend to apologize.
“I think that Mr. Duckett was feeling frustrated and he doesn't have a good communications means to tell us what Alberta Health Services is doing in general,” said Eggen, executive director of Friends of Medicare.
“I think this apology is an indication of that secretive and controlled nature that is getting in the way of progress for health care.”
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Threats to resign ‘poorly written soap opera,’ says Eggen
By Jodie Sinnema, edmontonjournal.com November 18, 2010 Comments (10)
StoryPhotos ( 1 )
Dr. Raj Sherman tends to a patient during an ER shift at Edmonton's Northeast Community Health Centre.Photograph by: Shaughn Butts, The Journal, File, Calgary Herald; Postmedia NewsEDMONTON — Dr. Raj Sherman’s threat, then change of heart, to resign from his position as Alberta’s parliamentary assistant for health was rightly motivated but regrettable, risking not only his credibility in the Tory caucus but public confidence in a government “throwing up its hands,” says a health policy analyst.
“I find what he has just done very regrettable and highly symptomatic of the degree of frustration that he is feeling,” said Dr. Tom Noseworthy, a professor at the University of Calgary and one-time president of the Royal Alexandra Hospital. “If he can’t motivate change from inside and he’s an elected MLA of government and can’t really feel that he is being properly heard, how does the average Joe expect to feel as a consequence?”
Noseworthy described Sherman’s harsh criticism of Premier Ed Stelmach’s handling of the health file as a public “mea culpa” and points to a government that doesn’t listen to its own members.
“I find it’s regrettable that our state of political circumstances is such that the only way an elected member of the legislature can make his opinions properly heard is to do it in the public as he has done,” Noseworthy said. “I thought that’s what caucus is for. I thought that’s what we had cabinet for.”
Early Wednesday morning, Sherman sent an internal e-mail to Stelmach, but also to 12 MLAs and more than 20 physicians, including Dr. Paul Parks, whose description of the “potential catastrophic collapse” of emergency care sparked government action last month. Sherman invited the recipients to forward his e-mail to others if they wished.
“I can no longer support the health-care decisions made by AHS as well as some of those made by our government,” Sherman wrote, saying the government broke promises to all Albertans. Some have died as a result of long hospital waits. A draft document that will guide Friday’s brainstorming session on possible solutions describes at least five more deaths in hospital hallways or waiting rooms, including a patient with stomach pain who died of an undiagnosed aortic rupture and another with a sore limb who eventually had it amputated because of infection due to slow care.
Sherman wrote it was his turn to “take one for the team that (he) trusts.”
“I must thank you for your passion and your rebuke of me,” he wrote to his physician colleagues.
Noseworthy said Sherman has worked diligently behind the lines to do something about the emergency problem, and said he wrote the e-mail as a physician, not a politician.
“The roles and moral responsibilities of a physician are substantially different than the roles and moral responsibilities of politicians,” Noseworthy said. “Dr. Sherman has behaved, quite rightly, as a frustrated emergency physician and as a consequence, he may lose his ability to have credibility with his political colleagues. You’ve got to be a doctor or a politician. It’s hard to be both at the same time.”
Noseworthy said it’s time for the government to step up with proof of improvements in health care.
“We have one of the boldest health-care experiments ever launched in Canada in the form of Alberta Health Services and one region for the whole province,” Noseworthy said. “This was not invented by (Alberta’s health superboard CEO) Stephen Duckett. This is this government, under its watch, inventing this type of health-care experiment. Now we need to make sure this government follows through and we hold them accountable for it.”
Albertans deserve better, he said.
“I mean goodness gracious, who is running the system here if government is throwing up its hands and making declarations of concern,” Noseworthy said. “It’s fine for us to say that the bad old days of (former Calgary Health Region president) Jack Davis and (former Capital Region region president) Sheila Weatherill needed to be changed, but I’m not convinced that what we replaced it with is any better. Let’s see some evidence that we’re on the right track.”
Guy Smith, president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, said it’s time for more high-profile MLAs to speak out on the health-care crisis.
“I think there are going to be cracks (in government) forming all over the place and maybe the fault line is around health care,” Smith said.
Keri Cable, a respiratory therapist who used to work with Sherman at the Northeast Health Centre, praised him for speaking out.
“It’s actually quite refreshing,” Cable said. “It’s nice we actually have someone who’s caring for the public interest at heart instead of toeing the party line.”
David Eggen, executive director of Friends of Medicare, had harsher words for Sherman.
“It reads like some kind of poorly written soap opera,” said Eggen, who will be running for the NDP in the next provincial election. “Why does it take Raj Sherman two years to figure out he was just being used by this government? They wanted a smiling doctor as their frontman, but now it just turns into another health leadership car crash. That’s the last thing we need right now.”
Eggen said Sherman should still resign to focus attention on the need for more health-care professionals and practical solutions to the emergency crisis. One local solution would be to fund and staff the newly constructed emergency ward at the East Edmonton Health Clinic, which sits empty. Opening it would divert 30,000 to 40,000 people away from the busy Royal Alexandra Hospital, where 34-year-old Shayne Hay hung himself in September after waiting for but failing to see a counsellor after 12 hours in emergency.
“(Sherman is) not just an MLA. He’s supposed to be the No. 2 elected official on the health file and we haven’t seen him anywhere in the last two years,” he said. “He’s having a conversion on the road to Damascus. That’s great, but it’s a bit late.”
jsinnema@edmontonjournal.com
By Jodie Sinnema, edmontonjournal.com November 18, 2010 Comments (10)
StoryPhotos ( 1 )
Dr. Raj Sherman tends to a patient during an ER shift at Edmonton's Northeast Community Health Centre.Photograph by: Shaughn Butts, The Journal, File, Calgary Herald; Postmedia NewsEDMONTON — Dr. Raj Sherman’s threat, then change of heart, to resign from his position as Alberta’s parliamentary assistant for health was rightly motivated but regrettable, risking not only his credibility in the Tory caucus but public confidence in a government “throwing up its hands,” says a health policy analyst.
“I find what he has just done very regrettable and highly symptomatic of the degree of frustration that he is feeling,” said Dr. Tom Noseworthy, a professor at the University of Calgary and one-time president of the Royal Alexandra Hospital. “If he can’t motivate change from inside and he’s an elected MLA of government and can’t really feel that he is being properly heard, how does the average Joe expect to feel as a consequence?”
Noseworthy described Sherman’s harsh criticism of Premier Ed Stelmach’s handling of the health file as a public “mea culpa” and points to a government that doesn’t listen to its own members.
“I find it’s regrettable that our state of political circumstances is such that the only way an elected member of the legislature can make his opinions properly heard is to do it in the public as he has done,” Noseworthy said. “I thought that’s what caucus is for. I thought that’s what we had cabinet for.”
Early Wednesday morning, Sherman sent an internal e-mail to Stelmach, but also to 12 MLAs and more than 20 physicians, including Dr. Paul Parks, whose description of the “potential catastrophic collapse” of emergency care sparked government action last month. Sherman invited the recipients to forward his e-mail to others if they wished.
“I can no longer support the health-care decisions made by AHS as well as some of those made by our government,” Sherman wrote, saying the government broke promises to all Albertans. Some have died as a result of long hospital waits. A draft document that will guide Friday’s brainstorming session on possible solutions describes at least five more deaths in hospital hallways or waiting rooms, including a patient with stomach pain who died of an undiagnosed aortic rupture and another with a sore limb who eventually had it amputated because of infection due to slow care.
Sherman wrote it was his turn to “take one for the team that (he) trusts.”
“I must thank you for your passion and your rebuke of me,” he wrote to his physician colleagues.
Noseworthy said Sherman has worked diligently behind the lines to do something about the emergency problem, and said he wrote the e-mail as a physician, not a politician.
“The roles and moral responsibilities of a physician are substantially different than the roles and moral responsibilities of politicians,” Noseworthy said. “Dr. Sherman has behaved, quite rightly, as a frustrated emergency physician and as a consequence, he may lose his ability to have credibility with his political colleagues. You’ve got to be a doctor or a politician. It’s hard to be both at the same time.”
Noseworthy said it’s time for the government to step up with proof of improvements in health care.
“We have one of the boldest health-care experiments ever launched in Canada in the form of Alberta Health Services and one region for the whole province,” Noseworthy said. “This was not invented by (Alberta’s health superboard CEO) Stephen Duckett. This is this government, under its watch, inventing this type of health-care experiment. Now we need to make sure this government follows through and we hold them accountable for it.”
Albertans deserve better, he said.
“I mean goodness gracious, who is running the system here if government is throwing up its hands and making declarations of concern,” Noseworthy said. “It’s fine for us to say that the bad old days of (former Calgary Health Region president) Jack Davis and (former Capital Region region president) Sheila Weatherill needed to be changed, but I’m not convinced that what we replaced it with is any better. Let’s see some evidence that we’re on the right track.”
Guy Smith, president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, said it’s time for more high-profile MLAs to speak out on the health-care crisis.
“I think there are going to be cracks (in government) forming all over the place and maybe the fault line is around health care,” Smith said.
Keri Cable, a respiratory therapist who used to work with Sherman at the Northeast Health Centre, praised him for speaking out.
“It’s actually quite refreshing,” Cable said. “It’s nice we actually have someone who’s caring for the public interest at heart instead of toeing the party line.”
David Eggen, executive director of Friends of Medicare, had harsher words for Sherman.
“It reads like some kind of poorly written soap opera,” said Eggen, who will be running for the NDP in the next provincial election. “Why does it take Raj Sherman two years to figure out he was just being used by this government? They wanted a smiling doctor as their frontman, but now it just turns into another health leadership car crash. That’s the last thing we need right now.”
Eggen said Sherman should still resign to focus attention on the need for more health-care professionals and practical solutions to the emergency crisis. One local solution would be to fund and staff the newly constructed emergency ward at the East Edmonton Health Clinic, which sits empty. Opening it would divert 30,000 to 40,000 people away from the busy Royal Alexandra Hospital, where 34-year-old Shayne Hay hung himself in September after waiting for but failing to see a counsellor after 12 hours in emergency.
“(Sherman is) not just an MLA. He’s supposed to be the No. 2 elected official on the health file and we haven’t seen him anywhere in the last two years,” he said. “He’s having a conversion on the road to Damascus. That’s great, but it’s a bit late.”
jsinnema@edmontonjournal.com
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
New joint - No more surgeries
Edmonton’s new joint replacement centre accepts first patients
By Jodie Sinnema, edmontonjournal.com November 17, 2010 8:02 PM
StoryPhotos ( 2 )
Though the Orthopedic Surgery Centre east of the Royal Alexandra Hospital on 102nd Street and 110th Avenue has 56 beds and four operating rooms, only a fraction of those beds are full and only two operating rooms are open.
The two ORs simply replace two now-unused and closed surgical suites in the Royal Alex, and thus won’t create additional surgical capacity or add more staff to the overall health system to get wait times down.
That, despite an $8-million blitz by Alberta Health Services this spring to reduce surgical wait times and accompanying plans to boost the number of such surgeries by 10 per cent in 2011.
In fact, Edmonton’s health zone has only performed about 2,700 joint replacements in the last year, down from 3,000 annually before, said Dr. Don Dick, medical lead of bone and joint health in Edmonton. Wait times haven’t improved since July, Dick said, when 90 per cent of patients had their knees replaced in 51.1 weeks, or 2.5 times longer than the centre’s original goal of 20 weeks. The benchmark in Alberta is now 26 weeks.
But Dick said the gradual opening of the new orthopedic facility is good news.
“When you move into a new house, you want to move in a little slowly,” Dick said. “Our hope is we will at some point in time be fully operational because then it would be most efficient. In the short term, we won’t realize the efficiencies quite as much because you’re using half a building.”
Ramping up the work will depend on the health superboard’s budget decisions for the new fiscal year, starting in April. But Dick said most of the 300 total knee and hip surgeries currently done at the University Hospital will move to the new centre early in the new year. What will be done with the emptied space at the University Hospital is unknown.
The most complex cases will still be performed in the hospitals, since patients have access to intensive care.
Another 800 joint replacements are currently done at the Misericordia Hospital. Plans are to eventually have all full hip and knee surgeries done at the new centre, and most of the 22 to 24 orthopedic surgeons from the region working there.
Most of the surgical centre rooms are private, since studies have shown infection rates rise when patients share rooms, Dick said. The rooms are larger and equipped with long hand-rails and are designed ergonomically, so patients and their physiotherapists can move around the room doing exercises with canes or on walkers.
Patients who receive new knees and hips in the mornings are typically on their feet by afternoon, speeding recovery, Dick said. The new orthopedic centre aims to have patients up and out within three days instead of the current four. Because of those short stays, the facility has fewer lounges, since family and friends won’t visit as much as they would in intensive care units, where patients have longer stays.
David Eggen, executive director of Friends of Medicare, said a new centre opening with no new staff shows bad planning.
“It’s kind of an expensive venue for not much of a result,” Eggen said. But he said elective surgeries on knees and hips should remain a priority, even with the current focus on long waits in hospital emergencies. Otherwise, those already crowded emergencies will be filled even more with people in joint pain.
In his blog, Dr. Arya Sharma said such joint replacements are key for his patients.
“This increasing demand for hip and knee replacements is primarily driven by one key factor: the increasing prevalence of obesity,” said Sharma, obesity expert with the University of Alberta and Alberta Health Services. “While I have no doubt that this centre is necessary and will provide high quality orthopedic care to Albertans, I am also positive that we will likely need many more such centres in Alberta and elsewhere unless we put the same resources and efforts into preventing and treating obesity.”
By Jodie Sinnema, edmontonjournal.com November 17, 2010 8:02 PM
StoryPhotos ( 2 )
Though the Orthopedic Surgery Centre east of the Royal Alexandra Hospital on 102nd Street and 110th Avenue has 56 beds and four operating rooms, only a fraction of those beds are full and only two operating rooms are open.
The two ORs simply replace two now-unused and closed surgical suites in the Royal Alex, and thus won’t create additional surgical capacity or add more staff to the overall health system to get wait times down.
That, despite an $8-million blitz by Alberta Health Services this spring to reduce surgical wait times and accompanying plans to boost the number of such surgeries by 10 per cent in 2011.
In fact, Edmonton’s health zone has only performed about 2,700 joint replacements in the last year, down from 3,000 annually before, said Dr. Don Dick, medical lead of bone and joint health in Edmonton. Wait times haven’t improved since July, Dick said, when 90 per cent of patients had their knees replaced in 51.1 weeks, or 2.5 times longer than the centre’s original goal of 20 weeks. The benchmark in Alberta is now 26 weeks.
But Dick said the gradual opening of the new orthopedic facility is good news.
“When you move into a new house, you want to move in a little slowly,” Dick said. “Our hope is we will at some point in time be fully operational because then it would be most efficient. In the short term, we won’t realize the efficiencies quite as much because you’re using half a building.”
Ramping up the work will depend on the health superboard’s budget decisions for the new fiscal year, starting in April. But Dick said most of the 300 total knee and hip surgeries currently done at the University Hospital will move to the new centre early in the new year. What will be done with the emptied space at the University Hospital is unknown.
The most complex cases will still be performed in the hospitals, since patients have access to intensive care.
Another 800 joint replacements are currently done at the Misericordia Hospital. Plans are to eventually have all full hip and knee surgeries done at the new centre, and most of the 22 to 24 orthopedic surgeons from the region working there.
Most of the surgical centre rooms are private, since studies have shown infection rates rise when patients share rooms, Dick said. The rooms are larger and equipped with long hand-rails and are designed ergonomically, so patients and their physiotherapists can move around the room doing exercises with canes or on walkers.
Patients who receive new knees and hips in the mornings are typically on their feet by afternoon, speeding recovery, Dick said. The new orthopedic centre aims to have patients up and out within three days instead of the current four. Because of those short stays, the facility has fewer lounges, since family and friends won’t visit as much as they would in intensive care units, where patients have longer stays.
David Eggen, executive director of Friends of Medicare, said a new centre opening with no new staff shows bad planning.
“It’s kind of an expensive venue for not much of a result,” Eggen said. But he said elective surgeries on knees and hips should remain a priority, even with the current focus on long waits in hospital emergencies. Otherwise, those already crowded emergencies will be filled even more with people in joint pain.
In his blog, Dr. Arya Sharma said such joint replacements are key for his patients.
“This increasing demand for hip and knee replacements is primarily driven by one key factor: the increasing prevalence of obesity,” said Sharma, obesity expert with the University of Alberta and Alberta Health Services. “While I have no doubt that this centre is necessary and will provide high quality orthopedic care to Albertans, I am also positive that we will likely need many more such centres in Alberta and elsewhere unless we put the same resources and efforts into preventing and treating obesity.”
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Close two public facilities+open one private facility = chaos
Updated: November 16, 2010 9:37 AM
Extendicare Michener Hill has yet to solve its staff shortage, which continues to impact people in its care, says the daughter of a resident.
Colleen McGowen said her mother Nettie Draper, 75, is bed-ridden and requires two staff to get her into her wheelchair.
On Saturday night, with only one staff member for about 18 residents on her mother’s unit, McGowen didn’t know if her mother was going to get a meal.
“All they could do was get people who were mobile up to the table to eat. (They said) hopefully at some point in the night we’ll be able to get your mom up,” McGowen said on Monday.
McGowen said after she complained to Extendicare, staff offered to bring her mother something in bed. McGowen took her mother some pizza at 9 p.m. to ensure she ate.
On Sunday, Draper stayed up all day in her wheelchair so she wouldn’t miss supper.
On Monday, Draper waited for her medication for over two hours because a staff member was called away to another unit.
“There’s people there at 10:30 at night, they’re laying on their beds fully clothed sleeping because no one had time to get them undressed yet.
“To me it’s unacceptable. All those patients pay their rent no matter what, no matter how many staff are on.”
The transfer of residents to Extendicare Michener Hill from Red Deer Nursing Home and Valley Park Manor resumed in late October after transfers stopped for about a month due to a shortage in Extendicare staff.
McGowen said Extendicare has otherwise provided her mother with good care for over two months, including physiotherapy treatment. But Extendicare needs more staff for the patients they had and shouldn’t have opened up more units.
“The staff is burned out. If staff is sick, there’s nobody to replace them,” McGowen said.
Alberta Health Services has shut down the two publicly-funded and publicly-operated nursing homes and moved residents to the new publicly-funded and privately-operated facility.
Extendicare Canada spokesperson Jay Scull said Extendicare has made significant staffing progress.
“We are working as hard as we possibly can to get the staff we need. We’re working with what we’ve got for now,” Scull said.
Kerry Bales, vice-president of Alberta Health Services Central Zone, said AHS continues to monitor Extendicare to make sure residents’ needs are met.
“The last review that we did, we were quite confident they had the staffing they needed to be able to provide the care. That’s improving on a day-to-day basis,” Bales said.
Extendicare Michener Hill has yet to solve its staff shortage, which continues to impact people in its care, says the daughter of a resident.
Colleen McGowen said her mother Nettie Draper, 75, is bed-ridden and requires two staff to get her into her wheelchair.
On Saturday night, with only one staff member for about 18 residents on her mother’s unit, McGowen didn’t know if her mother was going to get a meal.
“All they could do was get people who were mobile up to the table to eat. (They said) hopefully at some point in the night we’ll be able to get your mom up,” McGowen said on Monday.
McGowen said after she complained to Extendicare, staff offered to bring her mother something in bed. McGowen took her mother some pizza at 9 p.m. to ensure she ate.
On Sunday, Draper stayed up all day in her wheelchair so she wouldn’t miss supper.
On Monday, Draper waited for her medication for over two hours because a staff member was called away to another unit.
“There’s people there at 10:30 at night, they’re laying on their beds fully clothed sleeping because no one had time to get them undressed yet.
“To me it’s unacceptable. All those patients pay their rent no matter what, no matter how many staff are on.”
The transfer of residents to Extendicare Michener Hill from Red Deer Nursing Home and Valley Park Manor resumed in late October after transfers stopped for about a month due to a shortage in Extendicare staff.
McGowen said Extendicare has otherwise provided her mother with good care for over two months, including physiotherapy treatment. But Extendicare needs more staff for the patients they had and shouldn’t have opened up more units.
“The staff is burned out. If staff is sick, there’s nobody to replace them,” McGowen said.
Alberta Health Services has shut down the two publicly-funded and publicly-operated nursing homes and moved residents to the new publicly-funded and privately-operated facility.
Extendicare Canada spokesperson Jay Scull said Extendicare has made significant staffing progress.
“We are working as hard as we possibly can to get the staff we need. We’re working with what we’ve got for now,” Scull said.
Kerry Bales, vice-president of Alberta Health Services Central Zone, said AHS continues to monitor Extendicare to make sure residents’ needs are met.
“The last review that we did, we were quite confident they had the staffing they needed to be able to provide the care. That’s improving on a day-to-day basis,” Bales said.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
They certainly did speak up with their ballots!
Speak up about the hospital Local News
County residents are being told to let their voices be heard and that the hospital situation depicts a lack of political will
By Catherine Griwkowsky News Staff
Posted 5 days ago
David Eggen, executive director for Friends of Medicare, told an audience in Sherwood Park to speak up about the hospital with their ballots, at a meeting prior to the municipal election.
"Twenty years ago, we had twice as many hospital beds than we have here (in Alberta) today, and we have one million more people living here today," Eggen said.
Eggen said he was raised in Sherwood Park, but was not born in the hamlet.
"It was one of those disconnecting things that you learn from when you're a child, that yeah, this is my home, but hardly anyone is born here," he said. "Unless it was a mistake."
Eggen said Strathcona County needs a full-service hospital to create a sense of community.
He argued the absence of hospital is not due to a lack of need, or a lack of funding, but due to a lack of political will.
Eggen asked attendees to make the hospital an issue in the municipal election.
"That political will comes from people rising up, and speaking clearly with their voices, but speaking clearly as well with their ballots," he said.
He joked that the province could build a hospital with the ribbons and cornerstones used in announcements.
Eggen said the province needs to build the full-service capacity all at once, not the phased-in approach proposed, which he believed will cost more money.
Friends of Medicare is involved because access to public health care is the group's mandate, he said, adding the group is looking for the enforcement and enhancement of the Canada Health Act.
Advertisement
"One of the main five principles of the Canada Health Act is access to the best health care, regardless of the geographic location," Eggen said.
Audience members participated by asking questions, and giving opinions on the hospital.
Newly-elected Mayor Linda Osinchuk, then a candidate, said she is deeply concerned about the hospital saga.
"The purpose of that particular facility needs to be reflected," Osinchuk said. "It was to take pressure off the hospitals in the city."
Osinchuk said the heartland and integrated ambulance service are reasons Strathcona County needs a hospital.
Coun. Jason Gariepy held up a baseball and called it a basketball.
"You know how I know it's a basketball? It's round like a basketball, you can throw it like a basketball; it's a basketball," Gariepy said. "This is what I feel the province is trying to tell us. They're trying to tell us it's something that it's not. Every time we call it a hospital, we do ourselves a disservice because it is not a hospital. It is a clinic that you can receive emergency care at. The province has completely mismanaged this issue."
Gariepy said residents need to rise up and tell the province it is backwards to have a high voltage transmission line built, but not a hospital.
The Alberta Seniors United Now group was also present at the meeting.
catherine@
sherwoodparknews.com,
County residents are being told to let their voices be heard and that the hospital situation depicts a lack of political will
By Catherine Griwkowsky News Staff
Posted 5 days ago
David Eggen, executive director for Friends of Medicare, told an audience in Sherwood Park to speak up about the hospital with their ballots, at a meeting prior to the municipal election.
"Twenty years ago, we had twice as many hospital beds than we have here (in Alberta) today, and we have one million more people living here today," Eggen said.
Eggen said he was raised in Sherwood Park, but was not born in the hamlet.
"It was one of those disconnecting things that you learn from when you're a child, that yeah, this is my home, but hardly anyone is born here," he said. "Unless it was a mistake."
Eggen said Strathcona County needs a full-service hospital to create a sense of community.
He argued the absence of hospital is not due to a lack of need, or a lack of funding, but due to a lack of political will.
Eggen asked attendees to make the hospital an issue in the municipal election.
"That political will comes from people rising up, and speaking clearly with their voices, but speaking clearly as well with their ballots," he said.
He joked that the province could build a hospital with the ribbons and cornerstones used in announcements.
Eggen said the province needs to build the full-service capacity all at once, not the phased-in approach proposed, which he believed will cost more money.
Friends of Medicare is involved because access to public health care is the group's mandate, he said, adding the group is looking for the enforcement and enhancement of the Canada Health Act.
Advertisement
"One of the main five principles of the Canada Health Act is access to the best health care, regardless of the geographic location," Eggen said.
Audience members participated by asking questions, and giving opinions on the hospital.
Newly-elected Mayor Linda Osinchuk, then a candidate, said she is deeply concerned about the hospital saga.
"The purpose of that particular facility needs to be reflected," Osinchuk said. "It was to take pressure off the hospitals in the city."
Osinchuk said the heartland and integrated ambulance service are reasons Strathcona County needs a hospital.
Coun. Jason Gariepy held up a baseball and called it a basketball.
"You know how I know it's a basketball? It's round like a basketball, you can throw it like a basketball; it's a basketball," Gariepy said. "This is what I feel the province is trying to tell us. They're trying to tell us it's something that it's not. Every time we call it a hospital, we do ourselves a disservice because it is not a hospital. It is a clinic that you can receive emergency care at. The province has completely mismanaged this issue."
Gariepy said residents need to rise up and tell the province it is backwards to have a high voltage transmission line built, but not a hospital.
The Alberta Seniors United Now group was also present at the meeting.
catherine@
sherwoodparknews.com,
Health officials open up about new ER wait time targets Updated: Fri Nov. 12 2010 18:31:17
ctvedmonton.ca
It will take much longer than previously believed for the province to reach new emergency wait time targets. In fact, Alberta Health Services is now revealing it could be a matter of four years before patients see a change in emergency room wait times.
By next March, Alberta Health Services expects 70 per cent of patients treated and discharged in ERs will be in and out within four hours. But, it will be March of 2015 before the benchmark of 90 per cent of patients treated and discharged within four hours will be met.
When it comes to patients being admitted to hospital, the health superboard has set a goal of treating and admitting 45 per cent of patients within an eight-hour window by March of 2011. It will be another four years until that number also reaches 90 per cent.
"The numbers are starting to point to some optimism in the system," said Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky.
The health minister is asking for patients to be patient and suggests improvements are already being made. He says if the new benchmarks are not met by the specified timelines, someone will be held accountable.
"If the performance measures aren't met or if the goals and targets aren't met, we'll deal with it then," he said.
Critics argue the timelines are not acceptable.
"We have the capacity to build a much better public system than we have here in the province," said David Eggen who represents Friends of Medicare.
Eggen says he will be keeping a close eye on how the government tackles what some describe to be an emergency room crisis.
"As long as you're not just pushing people away or sending them home or away from the care that they need, that's what we will be watching very closely for."
Alberta Health Services is also shedding some light on how various emergency rooms are currently meeting those targets.
For the week beginning October 31st, only 35 per cent of patients at the Royal Alexandra Hospital were treated and discharged within four hours. At the University of Alberta hospital, that number was 38 per cent. Those were the lowest numbers in the Capital Region.
For patients needing to be admitted, the Grey Nuns and Misericordia hospitals recorded the worst times. In both cases only 21 per cent of patients were treated and admitted within the eight hour timeframe.
The province says the introduction of 3,300 new continuing care beds into hospitals over the next three years will help to relieve some of the pressure in emergency rooms.
With files from Laura Tupper
ctvedmonton.ca
It will take much longer than previously believed for the province to reach new emergency wait time targets. In fact, Alberta Health Services is now revealing it could be a matter of four years before patients see a change in emergency room wait times.
By next March, Alberta Health Services expects 70 per cent of patients treated and discharged in ERs will be in and out within four hours. But, it will be March of 2015 before the benchmark of 90 per cent of patients treated and discharged within four hours will be met.
When it comes to patients being admitted to hospital, the health superboard has set a goal of treating and admitting 45 per cent of patients within an eight-hour window by March of 2011. It will be another four years until that number also reaches 90 per cent.
"The numbers are starting to point to some optimism in the system," said Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky.
The health minister is asking for patients to be patient and suggests improvements are already being made. He says if the new benchmarks are not met by the specified timelines, someone will be held accountable.
"If the performance measures aren't met or if the goals and targets aren't met, we'll deal with it then," he said.
Critics argue the timelines are not acceptable.
"We have the capacity to build a much better public system than we have here in the province," said David Eggen who represents Friends of Medicare.
Eggen says he will be keeping a close eye on how the government tackles what some describe to be an emergency room crisis.
"As long as you're not just pushing people away or sending them home or away from the care that they need, that's what we will be watching very closely for."
Alberta Health Services is also shedding some light on how various emergency rooms are currently meeting those targets.
For the week beginning October 31st, only 35 per cent of patients at the Royal Alexandra Hospital were treated and discharged within four hours. At the University of Alberta hospital, that number was 38 per cent. Those were the lowest numbers in the Capital Region.
For patients needing to be admitted, the Grey Nuns and Misericordia hospitals recorded the worst times. In both cases only 21 per cent of patients were treated and admitted within the eight hour timeframe.
The province says the introduction of 3,300 new continuing care beds into hospitals over the next three years will help to relieve some of the pressure in emergency rooms.
With files from Laura Tupper
NEWS
November 11, 2010 View PDF
Legal challenges may imperil medicare, public health care advocates say
Current legal challenges to limitations on private sector medicine are based on the proposition that the legal right "to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice" under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms should guarantee access to medical care.
Photo credit: ©2010 Jupiterimages Corp.
Single-tier medicare is in peril because of legal challenges to provincial legislation that limits private sector medicare, delegates to a one-day session on the lawsuits were told Monday in Toronto, Ontario.
“This is a fight for the hearts and minds of Canadians,” Natalie Mehra, director of the Ontario Health Coalition, which sponsored the session, told roughly 70 medicare advocates, public interest lawyers, health professionals and representatives of seniors and people living with AIDS.
“Unless we fight, we will lose public health care,” Mehra added.
Among the court challenges is one in British Columbia brought by former Canadian Medical Association President Dr. Brian Day, whose lawsuit claims that the province’s Medicare Protection Act contravenes section seven of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Day’s suit contends that the “rights to liberty, life and security of the person are a constitutional guarantee of access to medical care, and include both a right to access to medical care of one’s choice, whether public or private, and a right of access to adequate and timely medical care” (www.courthousenews.com/2009/01/30/CanadaClinics.pdf).
Day’s Cambie Surgery Centre openly charges patients for medically necessary services, which is illegal under provincial law, said Rachel Tutte, cochair of the British Columbia Health Coalition. If Day’s case is successful, Tuttle warns that Charter challenges would inevitably follow suit across the country, leading to “the dismantling of the universal Medicare system.”
Day launched his case in early 2009 after B.C.’s quasi-judicial Medical Services Commission attempted to audit his and other private clinics. (Other private clinics were originally plaintiffs in the case, but they have since withdrawn.) The audit requests came about after a group of patients filed a lawsuit alleging the government wasn’t fulfilling its role to uphold medicare.
When private centres charged for essential services, said Stephanie Drake, a lawyer representing the BC Nurses Union, “the BC government’s policy was to ask the doctor nicely to pay back that patient and then leave him alone.”
Tutte said the number of private clinics in BC has grown to 33 over the past decade partly as a result of funding shortfalls in medicare. She added that BC clinics have become “more bold in openly violating” the province’s medicare legislation since the Supreme Court’s landmark 2005 ruling that Quebec's ban on private health insurance for medically necessary services violated provincial human rights law, (Chaoulli and Zeliotis v. A.G. Quebec et al., www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2005/2005scc35/2005scc35.html).
Meanwhile, in Ontario, two patients are also demanding the Ontario Superior Court of Justice allow doctors and companies to charge for essential medical services. Shona Holmes and Lindsay McCreith both travelled to private clinics in the United States for care and have alleged in a statement of claim against the province of Ontario that their health suffered because they were denied access to care outside of Ontario “government-run monopolistic” health care system.
Ontario legislation deprives residents “of the opportunity to secure timely access to essential health services and thereby violate the right to life and security of the person guaranteed by section 7 of the Charter,” the lawsuit states (www.law.utoronto.ca/healthlaw/docs/case_McCreith.pdf). “The prohibitions on direct billing, extra billing, private medical insurance and MRI [magnetic resonance imaging] facility fees also deprive Ontarians of the right to make fundamental personal choices with regard to their life and health and therefore violate the right to liberty as guaranteed by section 7 of the Charter.”
A similar case was filed in Alberta in 2006 in which a 59-year-old man challenged a provincial law that precluded residents from purchasing private health insurance for provincially insured services (www.law.utoronto.ca/healthlaw/docs/case_WilliamMurray.pdf). The case remains on the books but has not moved forward.
Mehra said the Canadian Constitution Foundation is behind both the Alberta and Ontario cases and had been “trolling” for patients they could use to launch a constitutional challenge. The foundation, which describes itself as “a registered charity, independent and non-partisan” that acts as a “voice for freedom in Canada’s courtrooms and law schools,” lists McCreith & Holmes v. Ontario as one of its court cases (www.canadianconstitutionfoundation.ca/court.php and www.canadianconstitutionfoundation.ca/files/1/September%202006.pdf).
“The cases [in BC, Alberta and Ontario] are brought by a very closely aligned, small group of private clinics, think tanks and lobby groups,” said Mehra. “They’re magnificently politically connected and they know this is their time.”
Vancouver-based family physician Dr. Duncan Etches told delegates that a two-tier system for essential medical services would cripple medicare. Private clinics “take the easy work,” picking and choosing patients who generate the most revenue, he said.
Without the simpler cases to offset the costs of the more complex ones, public clinics can become unsustainable, he argued.
More health workers will leave the public system if extra billing (charging patients for medically necessary procedures) is allowed, he said, adding that already “it’s sometimes hard to get an ultrasound for prenatal care because the ultrasound techs are over at the private clinics.”
Glyn Townson, chair of the British Columbia Persons with AIDS Society, which is an intervenor in the Day case, said there have been cases in which physicians in public hospitals have recruited patients to their private clinics by exaggerating wait times. “A close friend of mine had a back injury and he was told he could either walk across the hallway and get the procedure done immediately if he paid $1800, or he could wait several months,” he said. “When you’re under duress and in a lot of pain, if someone gives you an option, you’re going to take it.”
Various speakers argued the solution to the threat to medicare lies in governments stemming the tide of funding cuts. In Alberta, there were twice as many hospitals 20 years ago than now, said David Eggen, executive director of Friends of Medicare in Alberta.
The participants claimed provincial governments would be unlikely to surmount a strong defence against the lawsuits, arguing that BC, Ontario and Alberta are uninterested in upholding legislation that protects medicare. “It’s like the fox guarding the henhouse,” said Tutte.
November 11, 2010 View PDF
Legal challenges may imperil medicare, public health care advocates say
Current legal challenges to limitations on private sector medicine are based on the proposition that the legal right "to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice" under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms should guarantee access to medical care.
Photo credit: ©2010 Jupiterimages Corp.
Single-tier medicare is in peril because of legal challenges to provincial legislation that limits private sector medicare, delegates to a one-day session on the lawsuits were told Monday in Toronto, Ontario.
“This is a fight for the hearts and minds of Canadians,” Natalie Mehra, director of the Ontario Health Coalition, which sponsored the session, told roughly 70 medicare advocates, public interest lawyers, health professionals and representatives of seniors and people living with AIDS.
“Unless we fight, we will lose public health care,” Mehra added.
Among the court challenges is one in British Columbia brought by former Canadian Medical Association President Dr. Brian Day, whose lawsuit claims that the province’s Medicare Protection Act contravenes section seven of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Day’s suit contends that the “rights to liberty, life and security of the person are a constitutional guarantee of access to medical care, and include both a right to access to medical care of one’s choice, whether public or private, and a right of access to adequate and timely medical care” (www.courthousenews.com/2009/01/30/CanadaClinics.pdf).
Day’s Cambie Surgery Centre openly charges patients for medically necessary services, which is illegal under provincial law, said Rachel Tutte, cochair of the British Columbia Health Coalition. If Day’s case is successful, Tuttle warns that Charter challenges would inevitably follow suit across the country, leading to “the dismantling of the universal Medicare system.”
Day launched his case in early 2009 after B.C.’s quasi-judicial Medical Services Commission attempted to audit his and other private clinics. (Other private clinics were originally plaintiffs in the case, but they have since withdrawn.) The audit requests came about after a group of patients filed a lawsuit alleging the government wasn’t fulfilling its role to uphold medicare.
When private centres charged for essential services, said Stephanie Drake, a lawyer representing the BC Nurses Union, “the BC government’s policy was to ask the doctor nicely to pay back that patient and then leave him alone.”
Tutte said the number of private clinics in BC has grown to 33 over the past decade partly as a result of funding shortfalls in medicare. She added that BC clinics have become “more bold in openly violating” the province’s medicare legislation since the Supreme Court’s landmark 2005 ruling that Quebec's ban on private health insurance for medically necessary services violated provincial human rights law, (Chaoulli and Zeliotis v. A.G. Quebec et al., www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2005/2005scc35/2005scc35.html).
Meanwhile, in Ontario, two patients are also demanding the Ontario Superior Court of Justice allow doctors and companies to charge for essential medical services. Shona Holmes and Lindsay McCreith both travelled to private clinics in the United States for care and have alleged in a statement of claim against the province of Ontario that their health suffered because they were denied access to care outside of Ontario “government-run monopolistic” health care system.
Ontario legislation deprives residents “of the opportunity to secure timely access to essential health services and thereby violate the right to life and security of the person guaranteed by section 7 of the Charter,” the lawsuit states (www.law.utoronto.ca/healthlaw/docs/case_McCreith.pdf). “The prohibitions on direct billing, extra billing, private medical insurance and MRI [magnetic resonance imaging] facility fees also deprive Ontarians of the right to make fundamental personal choices with regard to their life and health and therefore violate the right to liberty as guaranteed by section 7 of the Charter.”
A similar case was filed in Alberta in 2006 in which a 59-year-old man challenged a provincial law that precluded residents from purchasing private health insurance for provincially insured services (www.law.utoronto.ca/healthlaw/docs/case_WilliamMurray.pdf). The case remains on the books but has not moved forward.
Mehra said the Canadian Constitution Foundation is behind both the Alberta and Ontario cases and had been “trolling” for patients they could use to launch a constitutional challenge. The foundation, which describes itself as “a registered charity, independent and non-partisan” that acts as a “voice for freedom in Canada’s courtrooms and law schools,” lists McCreith & Holmes v. Ontario as one of its court cases (www.canadianconstitutionfoundation.ca/court.php and www.canadianconstitutionfoundation.ca/files/1/September%202006.pdf).
“The cases [in BC, Alberta and Ontario] are brought by a very closely aligned, small group of private clinics, think tanks and lobby groups,” said Mehra. “They’re magnificently politically connected and they know this is their time.”
Vancouver-based family physician Dr. Duncan Etches told delegates that a two-tier system for essential medical services would cripple medicare. Private clinics “take the easy work,” picking and choosing patients who generate the most revenue, he said.
Without the simpler cases to offset the costs of the more complex ones, public clinics can become unsustainable, he argued.
More health workers will leave the public system if extra billing (charging patients for medically necessary procedures) is allowed, he said, adding that already “it’s sometimes hard to get an ultrasound for prenatal care because the ultrasound techs are over at the private clinics.”
Glyn Townson, chair of the British Columbia Persons with AIDS Society, which is an intervenor in the Day case, said there have been cases in which physicians in public hospitals have recruited patients to their private clinics by exaggerating wait times. “A close friend of mine had a back injury and he was told he could either walk across the hallway and get the procedure done immediately if he paid $1800, or he could wait several months,” he said. “When you’re under duress and in a lot of pain, if someone gives you an option, you’re going to take it.”
Various speakers argued the solution to the threat to medicare lies in governments stemming the tide of funding cuts. In Alberta, there were twice as many hospitals 20 years ago than now, said David Eggen, executive director of Friends of Medicare in Alberta.
The participants claimed provincial governments would be unlikely to surmount a strong defence against the lawsuits, arguing that BC, Ontario and Alberta are uninterested in upholding legislation that protects medicare. “It’s like the fox guarding the henhouse,” said Tutte.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Red Deer Advocate
Red Deer Advocate
Protesters rally to save beds
Text By Susan Zielinski - Red Deer Advocate
Video By JEFF STOKOE/Advocate staff
Published: November 04, 2010 6:14 AM
Updated: November 04, 2010 8:03 AM
About 150 protesters chanting “Save our beds!” continued their fight on Wednesday to protect Valley Park Manor, a Red Deer nursing home, from closure.
Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, Central Alberta Council on Aging, Friends of Medicare, seniors, long-term care residents and members of the public gathered at the corner of 43rd Street and 50th Avenue, as vehicles honked in support.
It was the fourth public rally this year to protest shutting down publicly funded and operated Red Deer Nursing Home and Valley Park Manor while people remain on a waiting list for long-term care.
Recently, petitions with 6,890 signatures were presented to the provincial government to keep the facilities open.
Alberta Union of Provincial Employees president Guy Smith told the crowd that after 40 years in power, the Progressive Conservatives refuse to use common sense.
“It makes sense to keep Valley Park Manor open. There’s a long-term care bed shortage in this province, especially in this region,” Smith said during the afternoon rally.
In particular, he blamed Seniors and Community Supports Minister Mary Anne Jablonski, who is MLA for Red Deer North.
“The one person who has the political ability to stand up for the people of her community is not doing it. It’s shameful.”
Last week, Jablonski told the Advocate that the future of Valley Park Manor is still open for review.
Residents from the two nursing homes are being transferred to the new publicly funded and privately operated Extendicare Michener Hill.
With 220 long-term care beds, Extendicare has only four more long-term care beds than Red Deer Nursing Home and Valley Park Manor combined.
Extendicare will also be opening 60 designated assisted living beds for people with higher health needs who do not yet need to go into long-term care.
David Eggen, executive director of Alberta’s Friends of Medicare, said Valley Park Manor could be filled today by seniors who are waiting in hospital and at home. Decisions are being made based on greed and privatizing health care, not patient’s health, he said.
“This fight that you see in Red Deer, people are watching it right across the province and right across the country because this is a process of taking things that we own together and giving them away to a private corporation,” Eggen said.
“We know this is the front line and we’re drawing a line.”
All of the residents in Red Deer Nursing Home have been transferred, but transfers from Valley Park Manor were stopped in late September due to a lack of staff at Extendicare. Transfers resumed on Oct. 26.
Valley Park Manor resident Linda Cliffe, 59, will move to Extendicare on Monday. With recent staffing issues at Extendicare, she doesn’t know what to expect.
“I can speak up for myself. There’s others you worry about who can’t.”
Another Valley Park resident, Shirley Rodgers, 72, moves on Sunday and said she’d rather stay where she is.
“A little maintenance here and there, it would be OK,” Rodgers said.
She just hoped the rally will make a difference because there’s no room for people to wait in hospitals in Red Deer or elsewhere.
Rally organizers urged people to call Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky.
szielinski@reddeeradvocate.com
Protesters rally to save beds
Text By Susan Zielinski - Red Deer Advocate
Video By JEFF STOKOE/Advocate staff
Published: November 04, 2010 6:14 AM
Updated: November 04, 2010 8:03 AM
About 150 protesters chanting “Save our beds!” continued their fight on Wednesday to protect Valley Park Manor, a Red Deer nursing home, from closure.
Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, Central Alberta Council on Aging, Friends of Medicare, seniors, long-term care residents and members of the public gathered at the corner of 43rd Street and 50th Avenue, as vehicles honked in support.
It was the fourth public rally this year to protest shutting down publicly funded and operated Red Deer Nursing Home and Valley Park Manor while people remain on a waiting list for long-term care.
Recently, petitions with 6,890 signatures were presented to the provincial government to keep the facilities open.
Alberta Union of Provincial Employees president Guy Smith told the crowd that after 40 years in power, the Progressive Conservatives refuse to use common sense.
“It makes sense to keep Valley Park Manor open. There’s a long-term care bed shortage in this province, especially in this region,” Smith said during the afternoon rally.
In particular, he blamed Seniors and Community Supports Minister Mary Anne Jablonski, who is MLA for Red Deer North.
“The one person who has the political ability to stand up for the people of her community is not doing it. It’s shameful.”
Last week, Jablonski told the Advocate that the future of Valley Park Manor is still open for review.
Residents from the two nursing homes are being transferred to the new publicly funded and privately operated Extendicare Michener Hill.
With 220 long-term care beds, Extendicare has only four more long-term care beds than Red Deer Nursing Home and Valley Park Manor combined.
Extendicare will also be opening 60 designated assisted living beds for people with higher health needs who do not yet need to go into long-term care.
David Eggen, executive director of Alberta’s Friends of Medicare, said Valley Park Manor could be filled today by seniors who are waiting in hospital and at home. Decisions are being made based on greed and privatizing health care, not patient’s health, he said.
“This fight that you see in Red Deer, people are watching it right across the province and right across the country because this is a process of taking things that we own together and giving them away to a private corporation,” Eggen said.
“We know this is the front line and we’re drawing a line.”
All of the residents in Red Deer Nursing Home have been transferred, but transfers from Valley Park Manor were stopped in late September due to a lack of staff at Extendicare. Transfers resumed on Oct. 26.
Valley Park Manor resident Linda Cliffe, 59, will move to Extendicare on Monday. With recent staffing issues at Extendicare, she doesn’t know what to expect.
“I can speak up for myself. There’s others you worry about who can’t.”
Another Valley Park resident, Shirley Rodgers, 72, moves on Sunday and said she’d rather stay where she is.
“A little maintenance here and there, it would be OK,” Rodgers said.
She just hoped the rally will make a difference because there’s no room for people to wait in hospitals in Red Deer or elsewhere.
Rally organizers urged people to call Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky.
szielinski@reddeeradvocate.com
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Lethbridge Herald
'The province is falling apart'
Tuesday, 02 November 2010 02:01 Shurtz, Delon
Delon Shurtz
lethbridge herald
dshurtz@lethbridgeherald.com
Premier Ed Stelmach must not have been very good at puzzles and games as a child. At least he never learned how to connect the dots, says the Friends of Medicare in Lethbridge.
The FOM says there is a direct correlation between cuts to health care and the lack of emergency and long-term care beds in Alberta, but Stelmach just doesn't seem to get it.
"We don't feel Premier Stelmach can connect the dots," says Bev Muendel-Atherstone, acting chairman of the local group.
But it's not rocket science. When the health-care budget is cut and hospitals are closed, patient care suffers.
"They blew up the Calgary General Hospital and guess what? We have fewer beds," Muendel-Atherstone said Monday during a rally outside the downtown constituency office of Lethbridge West MLA Greg Weadick.
Muendel-Atherstone pointed out there was one bed for every 200 Albertans in 1993, but as of last year, there was only one bed for every 500 Albertans.
"Shame on the Alberta Government. Shame on Stelmach."
The FOM maintains people are dying because they aren't being seen quickly enough by emergency room health-care personnel, and acute care beds are being filled with patients who should be in long-term care beds, but there aren't enough of them.
"What's happening here? The province is falling apart."
Nearly 20 supporters, each carrying a large placard, participated in the rally and shouted their disdain at the government's handling of the health-care system.
"Privatization kills," read one sign. "People are dying waiting for ERs," read another.
Weadick, who was at the legislature in Edmonton during the rally, said he appreciates the views expressed by the group and others who are upset at cuts to health care, and he promised to address their concerns.
"I will continue to advocate for health care in Edmonton," he said.
Weadick said he, too, is concerned about wait times for patients to see a doctor in emergency departments, and then to get a bed, but he noted more beds are opening up in Calgary and Edmonton. He added the legislature will, this week, be looking at patients' rights under the Health Act, particularly regarding wait times.
Despite the concerns, Weadick reminds people that wait times for beds in Lethbridge are the shortest in Alberta, and possibly Canada, and residents can be proud of the efforts of local doctors and nurses.
In addition to providing more long-term-care beds, Muendel-Atherstone said the government needs to re-open hospital wards, including wards at the Chinook Regional Hospital in Lethbridge, and hire more doctors and nurses. And it's all affordable, she said, as long as the province learns to manage its budget properly.
Last week Alberta's auditor general, Merwan Saher, said a comprehensive plan wasn't in place when the nine regional health authorities and three specialized boards merged a year and a half ago to create Alberta Health Services. As a result, more than $500 million in expenses were misclassified and changes eventually needed to be made in the master ledger. Another $420 million in expenses were accidentally omitted from the books because the money was classified under one category in one budget and under another in the main ledger.
Reacting to the report, Rob Anderson of the Wildrose Alliance said at the time it shows the problems in health care are not related to funding, but financial management
"People are not asking this government to spend more money," he said. "They're asking them to spend the money they're spending right now wisely
Tuesday, 02 November 2010 02:01 Shurtz, Delon
Delon Shurtz
lethbridge herald
dshurtz@lethbridgeherald.com
Premier Ed Stelmach must not have been very good at puzzles and games as a child. At least he never learned how to connect the dots, says the Friends of Medicare in Lethbridge.
The FOM says there is a direct correlation between cuts to health care and the lack of emergency and long-term care beds in Alberta, but Stelmach just doesn't seem to get it.
"We don't feel Premier Stelmach can connect the dots," says Bev Muendel-Atherstone, acting chairman of the local group.
But it's not rocket science. When the health-care budget is cut and hospitals are closed, patient care suffers.
"They blew up the Calgary General Hospital and guess what? We have fewer beds," Muendel-Atherstone said Monday during a rally outside the downtown constituency office of Lethbridge West MLA Greg Weadick.
Muendel-Atherstone pointed out there was one bed for every 200 Albertans in 1993, but as of last year, there was only one bed for every 500 Albertans.
"Shame on the Alberta Government. Shame on Stelmach."
The FOM maintains people are dying because they aren't being seen quickly enough by emergency room health-care personnel, and acute care beds are being filled with patients who should be in long-term care beds, but there aren't enough of them.
"What's happening here? The province is falling apart."
Nearly 20 supporters, each carrying a large placard, participated in the rally and shouted their disdain at the government's handling of the health-care system.
"Privatization kills," read one sign. "People are dying waiting for ERs," read another.
Weadick, who was at the legislature in Edmonton during the rally, said he appreciates the views expressed by the group and others who are upset at cuts to health care, and he promised to address their concerns.
"I will continue to advocate for health care in Edmonton," he said.
Weadick said he, too, is concerned about wait times for patients to see a doctor in emergency departments, and then to get a bed, but he noted more beds are opening up in Calgary and Edmonton. He added the legislature will, this week, be looking at patients' rights under the Health Act, particularly regarding wait times.
Despite the concerns, Weadick reminds people that wait times for beds in Lethbridge are the shortest in Alberta, and possibly Canada, and residents can be proud of the efforts of local doctors and nurses.
In addition to providing more long-term-care beds, Muendel-Atherstone said the government needs to re-open hospital wards, including wards at the Chinook Regional Hospital in Lethbridge, and hire more doctors and nurses. And it's all affordable, she said, as long as the province learns to manage its budget properly.
Last week Alberta's auditor general, Merwan Saher, said a comprehensive plan wasn't in place when the nine regional health authorities and three specialized boards merged a year and a half ago to create Alberta Health Services. As a result, more than $500 million in expenses were misclassified and changes eventually needed to be made in the master ledger. Another $420 million in expenses were accidentally omitted from the books because the money was classified under one category in one budget and under another in the main ledger.
Reacting to the report, Rob Anderson of the Wildrose Alliance said at the time it shows the problems in health care are not related to funding, but financial management
"People are not asking this government to spend more money," he said. "They're asking them to spend the money they're spending right now wisely
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