AHS needs to review delivery model, revisit changes
By Letter to the Editor on December 11, 2019.
Dear Mr. Kenney, Alberta Health Services (AHS) is broken and has been for many years. Every elected government has tried and failed to make permanent and sustainable changes to it. I believe the “expert committee” was window dressing for what the Kenney UCP government intended to do anyway all along. AHS needs to review their delivery model and revisit how changes from local hospital boards to centralized health services has not improved our health care or the costs associated with it. Every Albertan understands that education and health care demand a great deal of the financial pie. However, how do we tighten our belts and leave the sick and young of this province without resources? I am sure the high unemployment, dwindling middle class taxpayers and declining resource revenues/royalties have not helped this government address their financial concerns. Building pipelines is not the only way to solve this either, pipelines when approved we all understand takes time. AHS is still promoting one of their principles of being a”patient and family centered care” organization. In this current climate this is a very idealistic model given the current staff shortages and as the media would have us believe more shortages are to come. It would be wonderful to consistently see delivery of this kind of care, but it is not realistic where fiscal restraint, changes to staffing mix and the diminished role of our RNs makes this an unrealistic idea. And finally Mr. Kenney even in the boom times there were still surgical wait times and shortage of LTC beds. Victoria Krizsan RN,DC, Cneph Medicine Hat 11-10
Yes, the AHS is broken. Very broken.
I agree to an extent that every elected government has tried and failed to make changes, except for Klein. He made some hard decisions but they needed to be made. Years and much dept later, in comes Kenney. Now he faces an even worse situation and again, hard decisions have to be made. But then the AHS throws out threats, like reducing front line staff or reducing services. Seems as though AHS heads think front line staff is less important than relinquishing their own bonus’s or wages.
“even in the boom times there were still surgical wait times and shortage of LTC beds” This epitomizes the problem with the health care and educational systems. Where is the responsibility to manage the public’s money efficiently within these departments? If AHS was ever serious about managing properly, they would have corrected spending issues years ago.
After years of mismanagement, Kenney is forced to clean up this mess and bring back responsible spending. Money doesn’t grow on trees.
“how do we tighten our belts and leave the sick and young of this province without resources?” How will finding efficiencies, reducing waste and eliminating multiple layers of management going to leave the sick without resources? I believe it will do the exact opposite. It will free up funds to provide services to more people, not less.
Aren’t these exactly the type of issues that the heads of AHS are supposed to figure out in the first place? If they can’t, then I know where we can save even more money!