Minister of Assisted Living and Social Services Jason Nixon says the province is making strides toward reducing Alternative Level of Care patients, which he says is partly to blame for an ongoing crisis seen in hospitals.--NEWS FILE PHOTO
zmason@medicinehatnews.com
The minister responsible for continuing care appeared before the media Wednesday for the first time since doctors across the province began calling for a state of emergency in Alberta’s hospitals.
Minister of Assisted Living and Social Services Jason Nixon answered questions pertaining to ongoing crisis conditions at an unrelated housing announcement press conference Wednesday.
Nixon says the year’s difficult flu season has been a burden on a strained health-care system, but the measures enacted by the provincial health ministries so far are working.
He says addressing the build-up of Alternative Level of Care (ALC) patients, sometimes referred to as “bed blockers,” is the highest priority of Assisted Living Alberta.
Nixon’s comments follow two recent media availabilities featuring Minister of Hospital and Surgical Health Services Matt Jones and other hospital health leadership.
The other two health ministers, Rick Wilson and Adriana LaGrange, have yet to speak publicly on the situation in Alberta’s hospitals.
Opposition NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi released a statement Tuesday calling on the UCP to reconvene the legislature to hold an emergency debate about the health-care crisis.
“This is not normal, and it’s not just a bad flu season. Albertans need to see real action now, and that’s why Alberta’s New Democrats are calling on the UCP to admit we are in a crisis and emergency,” said Nenshi.
Nixon dismissed the request.
“I don’t think calling back the legislature and spending a bunch of money and bringing everybody back into there to talk about something we all agree has to be fixed is going to help at all – we already have put the money in place … and we’re seeing metrics that show that investment is working.”
“What we need to do is make sure that we follow through on our commitments and make sure that we continue to create more space inside both systems, which is what the government is doing.”
Premier Danielle Smith has also been notably absent from the public eye as calls for further government action in health care have mounted over the last few weeks.
“Where is the premier right now? She’s working hard to make sure that her cabinet and her government are continuing to deliver for Albertans, and when it comes to health care, as we just talked about, you’re seeing that her push delivers significant results,” Nixon said in response to a question about Smith’s absence from the recent health-care press conferences.
Nixon says that since his ministry took control in September, it has added continuing care spaces equivalent to the entire Red Deer Hospital’s bed capacity. He says the number of ALCs in the province has dropped by 20 per cent to an average of around 15 per cent.
“My department must keep up at the same rate of that demand for acute care, within the same amount of continuing care beds that we need to be able to make sure ALCs don’t become the long-term problem in the hospital system going forward.”
Ongoing capacity upgrades, he says, are in the process of adding 1,800 new units, which are currently in the construction phase.
Nixon says the long-term goal for ALCs is that no one stays in hospital longer than 30 days, with most patients discharged within 72 hours.
Nixon says his ministry has enacted some changes over the last few weeks amid mounting pressure to relieve the stress on emergency departments. Nixon says his ministry has updated policy in the last couple of weeks so appropriate staff are available 24 hours a day to assist with social services like care for the homeless.
The last sentence of this story; who are these appropriate staff available 24 hours a day to help the homeless when Safe Link Medicine Hat is denied operational funding by the Alberta government that was approved by the Canadian government? Minister Nixon simultaneously sucks and blows. Neat trick.
The last sentence of this story; who are these appropriate staff available 24 hours a day to help the homeless when Safe Link Medicine Hat is denied operational funding by the Alberta government that was approved by the Canadian government? Minister Nixon simultaneously sucks and blows. Neat trick.