Cypress-Medicine Hat MLA Drew Barnes speaks at a town hall on Thursday Nov. 7, 2019. -- FILE PHOTO
jappel@medicinehatnews.com@MHNJeremyAppel
Cypress-Medicine Hat MLA Drew Barnes says he doesn’t believe a report released this week calling for $2 billion in healthcare savings that has been criticized as a trap door to privatization will be fully implemented.
The Ernst & Young report, which was released Monday, makes 57 recommendations, including the privatization of certain services, rollbacks to Alberta Health Service salaries and closing certain hospitals that aren’t being used to full capacity.
Barnes emphasized that these are simply recommendations.
“I don’t think you want to hold anybody back when you hire them to do a report. It’s totally up to the government as to what they do with those recommendations,” he told the News.
Barnes says there’s “too much middle management” in AHS, which eats up health-care dollars that could be better spent elsewhere in the system, excessively long waiting times and “unsustainable” cost increases.
He said Health Minister Tyler Shandro has signalled his intention to “protect rural health care.”
But Barnes says other recommendations ought to become reality, such as reducing AHS centralization to encourage “more local decision making,” as well as moving towards a “system more rewarded for performance” and improved electronic health records.
Barnes dismissed concerns from the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, which represents about 50,000 health-care workers, that the report’s recommendations are a step on the path to privatization.
“That’s been their song for 20 years, 30 years,” he said. “Every time a conservative government looks at more value for our health care, they claim we’re going down the rabbit hole of privatization and unfairness, and that’s not the case.”
Lethbridge West MLA and NDP finance critic Shannon Phillips, who was in the Hat Friday, said health-care workers and patients are correct to fear privatization.
She says the government has already put out requests for proposals to for-profit clinics to conduct surgeries, suggesting that they’ve already made up their minds.
Moving toward private services shifts the emphasis of health care from the needs of patients to generating profit with taxpayer funds, Phillips said.
The report recommends defunding 44 surgical procedures deemed non-essential, including tubal ligations, mastectomies and some hernia procedures, among others.
“If you want them, you will have to pay,” said Phillips. “That is privatization.”
Although the minister has vowed not to close any rural hospitals, Phillips said he didn’t disavow any of the report’s recommendation to close certain emergency rooms, as well as labour and delivery units, in rural municipalities.
“You have a number of complex needs for people in different communities,” Phillips said. “I do not trust this UCP government, or their team of accountants who put out this report, to determine what our health-care needs are in rural Alberta.
“In addition, I do not specifically trust (Premier) Jason Kenney to make decisions about where women’s health needs should be met, in terms of closure of labour and delivery units. At all.”
She said she agrees there are issues with the province’s health-care system, specifically with regards to accessing primary care, urgent care and air ambulance services, but that they ought to be addressed within the confines of the public system.
“What you see form the UCP is a strategy to continually make war on our public health-care system, because ultimately they don’t believe in it and they don’t want it,” Phillips said. “They want to sell off, privatize and Americanize big aspects of it.”
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InsaneLeftie
4 years ago
Shannon Phillips has her tin foil hat on I see. Not to mention she would spend and waste until the province was bankrupt.
So “Impala” by your uninformed comment you imply home care is going to bankrupt Alberta. Once again you are spewing your rhetoric under the cloak of anonymity. I didn’t hear from you for a couple of days and was wondering if you decided to stop being so afraid of your own words. But here you are again disappointing must people on here.
~
And the scary part or should I say, “another scary part” is they are now going after continuing care and home care.
I can say that I have nurses coming to my home twice a week and healthcare aides coming to my home twice a day to deal with a staph infection I have in my leg.
While some people may feel this is a little excessive having people come to my home twice a day, and I will not be surprised when we hear this from Health Minister Tyler Shandro. I’ve had some people say I should be in the hospital and maybe they’re right because it’s not good when a staph infection goes bad and is relatively quick if it enters the bloodstream.
And while Shandro may try and justify cutting or even privatizing home care, I hope people consider the money saved by me being treated at home rather than the hospital. In the hospital, I would have nurses check on me eight or ten times a day. I do not have the hospital feeding me or doing my laundry. I do not have a Doctor checking me once a day and another one behind the counter monitoring my medication.
The things I have at home is my own cooking, my freedom to deal with my personal issues, My ability to contact my Doctor if a situation requires it, rather than once a day for nothing.
I have my medic alarm at home if something happens and that gives me security. I also have my service dog that tries to keep my stress livable. I will admit that what I am going through is very stressful, but we or I question if that stress would be any lower if I was in the hospital taking a bed from someone that may need it more than me.
Yes, maybe home care should be reviewed. But we ought not to be looking for cuts because the cost of not having it would choke every aspect of our healthcare, from meals to laundry. What I hope what comes from this review is how we can make it better and safer for people to be treated in their homes.
The number one and the first recommendation I would like to put forward is, anybody receiving home care ought to be given a medic alarm if not for need, but for a sense of security for the client.
My medic alarm cost around $50/month and that is a couple of days of meals in the hospital.
Now I’m not some accountant with Ernst & Young, I am just some guy at home fighting a staph infection with a team of caring and professional nurses with a group of health aides and I’m afraid that we may lose this service.
I think it is time for every Albertan to start asking, when is this UCP government going to stop playing Russian roulette with people’s lives? Because it may be you that gets the staph infection next week, and then you’ll see just how vital home care service is.
Thank you
Shannon Phillips has her tin foil hat on I see. Not to mention she would spend and waste until the province was bankrupt.
So “Impala” by your uninformed comment you imply home care is going to bankrupt Alberta. Once again you are spewing your rhetoric under the cloak of anonymity. I didn’t hear from you for a couple of days and was wondering if you decided to stop being so afraid of your own words. But here you are again disappointing must people on here.
~
And the scary part or should I say, “another scary part” is they are now going after continuing care and home care.
I can say that I have nurses coming to my home twice a week and healthcare aides coming to my home twice a day to deal with a staph infection I have in my leg.
While some people may feel this is a little excessive having people come to my home twice a day, and I will not be surprised when we hear this from Health Minister Tyler Shandro. I’ve had some people say I should be in the hospital and maybe they’re right because it’s not good when a staph infection goes bad and is relatively quick if it enters the bloodstream.
And while Shandro may try and justify cutting or even privatizing home care, I hope people consider the money saved by me being treated at home rather than the hospital. In the hospital, I would have nurses check on me eight or ten times a day. I do not have the hospital feeding me or doing my laundry. I do not have a Doctor checking me once a day and another one behind the counter monitoring my medication.
The things I have at home is my own cooking, my freedom to deal with my personal issues, My ability to contact my Doctor if a situation requires it, rather than once a day for nothing.
I have my medic alarm at home if something happens and that gives me security. I also have my service dog that tries to keep my stress livable. I will admit that what I am going through is very stressful, but we or I question if that stress would be any lower if I was in the hospital taking a bed from someone that may need it more than me.
Yes, maybe home care should be reviewed. But we ought not to be looking for cuts because the cost of not having it would choke every aspect of our healthcare, from meals to laundry. What I hope what comes from this review is how we can make it better and safer for people to be treated in their homes.
The number one and the first recommendation I would like to put forward is, anybody receiving home care ought to be given a medic alarm if not for need, but for a sense of security for the client.
My medic alarm cost around $50/month and that is a couple of days of meals in the hospital.
Now I’m not some accountant with Ernst & Young, I am just some guy at home fighting a staph infection with a team of caring and professional nurses with a group of health aides and I’m afraid that we may lose this service.
I think it is time for every Albertan to start asking, when is this UCP government going to stop playing Russian roulette with people’s lives? Because it may be you that gets the staph infection next week, and then you’ll see just how vital home care service is.
Thank you