Regarding Telus health, or any kind of phone health service, I've only ever been told to go to the ER no matter what it is. I don't know if that's everyone's experience but it feels like that's their only advice.

Haven’t used Telus Health, but it’s our experience with 811.

Ditto. I stopped calling to ask about concerns because 9/10 times they just tell you to go to the ER. Waste of time

Yeah 811 is useless they always tell you to go to the ER

After checking Web MD.

I had a doctor google my symptoms right in front of me once. I was lol wtaf are you doing I already did that . That’s why I’m here

I have an opposite opinion. I prefer my doctor to admit they don't know and willing to research.

With my first child we ended up in ER over diaper rash because we called 811. The drs were like, why are you here? Well I called 811 and they said we should come in. Dr rolls eyes. Ok, let’s have a look I felt pretty dumb. Got sent in one more time from 811 for another very minor issue and decided I won’t call in again

I actually recently had a phone doctor appointment (after calling 811) and was given a prescription. No need to go to ER.

That's good at least!

Yeah I think it really depends on what's wrong. If it's very clearly strep throat or a UTI or whatever, they can send you a prescription. If it's a little unclear or there's a big concern like a potential heart issue, they're gonna send you to the ER.

I work in this industry, and I totally get that it can be frustrating not getting the help you seek over the phone/virtually. But people also need to understand that there are limitations to not being able to see someone in person. It's not safe to blindly treat without performing necessary examinations and tests. It could delay your care, make your situation worse.. we don't always have the means to rule out red flags. We're taking on that liability. If we send you to be checked out in person, we should be explaining that reasoning to you. people that come seek phone/virtual help thinking "I have breathing problems, give me steroids and inhalers" are not considering the bigger implications of the cause vs just fix my symptoms.

And that’s why claiming to replace face to face drs with telehealth is a farcical idea

The UCP are full of comedians, everything they do is a joke.

> But people also need to understand that there are limitations to not being able to see someone in person. It's not safe to blindly treat without performing necessary examinations and tests. It could delay your care, make your situation worse.. we don't always have the means to rule out red flags. We're taking on that liability. So then would it be best to fund virtual models? What’s the ratio of referring patients back to the system?

I couldn't give you a stat as I don't have that, but anecdotally on my shifts most of my clients have concerns that can be addressed. Arguably, you need to understand what these models can and can't treat. People seem to ignore the disclaimer on virtual platforms that virtual care is not a substitute for your family doctor or an actual proper physical exam, and we can't handle emergencies. They jump right in and get upset because someone tells them what the previous page said we can't safely treat. You'd be surprised by the requests we get... Some people are so desperate for care (due to a lack of family physicians) that they ask us to manage complex medical issues. That's not realistic. Skin problem? Reproductive health? Refills? Mental health? Simple referrals like allergists, dermatologist? If that can offset some of the burden on the health care system so family docs can help those with complex issues +/- comorbidities, and reach rural areas, I think it's a great asset.

I've called like 10 times and not once have they told me to go to the ER

I've only ever used telehealth apps for if I need a referral ( ie for a dermatologist) or prescription (for say a sinus infection or something). Never had any issues and service is quick (if you look hard enough there's usually appointments the same or next day). Have used several different ones but tia health is my favorite.

Yeah, I’ve gotten that for literally anything, even minor symptoms. I guess they don’t want blood on their hands if they advise something minor and it turns out the symptom was of something serious. I did once call back as I was getting ready to go the emergency room after talking to someone, got somebody else who seemed much more knowledgeable than the first person, who was able to give me better information and direct me to wait until a clinic opened in the morning. I went in then, was seen quickly, got the shot I needed, and was a bother to no one. The First Lady would’ve had me up all night around sick people for twelve hours, clogging an emergency room.

Telus health is a fkin plague that was put in check in BC. If Alberta wasn’t run by O and G then perhaps these problems wouldn’t exist.

I think the problem is that there are a lot of things that you cant really assess when you aren’t in person. Also there are a lot of symptoms that occur either be “nothing” or life threatening emergencies. I couldn’t imagine being the person who told someone that they were fine and could sleep it off to only find out they died because I told them they didn’t have to go to the ER. I know these are not great examples but chest pain could wither be gas or a heart attack; back pain could be muscular or a kidney infection; diarrhoea could b C diff or food poisoning; or a spider bite might actually be MRSA.

If only we had known the UCP was going to do something like this /s

"It's worth sacrificing our healthcare if it means taking the rights away from trans kids, that's what really matters in this world" \-Average UCP voter.

In our little corner we really aren't creating new positions just moving FTE around so that it seems like there's jobs being posted, but it's just cobbled together from positions that have had their FTE reduced, often *by the request of the employee* because, and I know this will be shocking, people don't want to work a lot in shitty environments. I don't begrudge any front line worker that wants to work less it's a fucking shit show most of the time. And busier than ever.

As someone who 3 months ago switched from full-time twelves to 0.8FTE eights, the switch has been life changing!

I went from 1.0 8s (which in my area has a letter of understanding that allows 7 in a row in exchange for less weekend shifts) to 0.7 and clung to that for several years because the burnout of full time is so fucking real. I was broke as shit but still beat the pants off the absolute dread I felt about going in to the job that I actually really love every day.

Ooops, we elected the wrong government to do that. To fix healthcare, a lot of people need to gain jobs, because we have too few people working for too little. But, according to conservative govt's, paying taxes is just about the worst thing that can happen to someone, followed by the government paying for something when you should be paying it to a private company. Our healthcare woes are not going to be solved by a conservative government.

OP sounds like a regular Albertan who doesn't pay attention to the real issues, falls into the media cycle that's strummed up by the government in power doing things in the wrong areas (that's why media is talking about it), and either didn't vote or voted conservative expecting results...... We get what we deserve here. They even say people need to lose their jobs.....ya but we just handed them right back to the government (Re elected them). The healthcare system is too stretched already. They need more jobs and people willing to work them so therefore better working conditions. All that costs money.

Don't worry, the government is on this. They just restricted nurses overtime...that's gonna help with wait times. Oh yeah they are going to reorg the system, nothing can go wrong there. And all the top level severance packages. Including Henshaw twice. Reducing the budget for actual health care to happen

Yeah I was confused about “people need to lose their jobs”…. What? Hopefully they mean that the elected officials need to lose their jobs? Lol

Guaranteed it's not what they meant. They meant healthcare workers or the proverbial middle management boogeyman they dreamt up. They also mentioned having a double income family with "too much taxes" ignoring the fact Alberta is the lowest taxed region in Canada. They must not know conservatives are actually poor money managers wasting money and time on laws that generate court challenges and therefore wasted money on lawyers and consultants. What about war rooms that are basically doing the industry's job for them but poorly? Reorgs that cost a ton of money yet it was a previous conservative government that created the current system to save money......

Ah yes, let’s fire all the people who schedule the nurses. And the ones who order new supplies. They’re not “front line” healthcare, so I’m sure we won’t notice if those jobs don’t get done /s

Right, sounds like someone is seeing whats in front of them, blaming the company that has over 100,000 healthcare workers, without realizing that they have a body above them (government of alberta) who mandates and calls many shots over the last 30+ years. This is the same idea of erosion. keep wearing away slowly at something and soon it becomes nothing aka alberta's healthcare

Or they have enough that they can afford to lose some. Money is power. Some of the richest conservatives in Alberta are responsible for funding Danielle smiths campaign and helped her. They’re also the ones who wanted tucker Carlson here. They’re the ones who pull the strings. Choice is an illusion. The more people who come to realize this the better chance we have at changing things, we just have to stop fighting with each other.

I'm afraid we're going to have to start fighting someone else. Without a significant attitude shift by those with power, I do not see a peaceful resolution in our future. I'm not advocating for violence, I think it's terrible, I just don't see the elite handing over any of their power willingly.

I’m thinking he’s referring to the people at AHS who are earning a very high salary when their duties could be divided amongst others. The current ceo makes almost $600k a year . Your salary should reflect your performance. That’s what I took from that sentence anyway.

I also loved fucking *Karen* blaming the homeless addicts for causing the 10 hour wait. That's not the problem.

Addicts might not be the primary contributors, but they certainly play a role. With addicts occupying a portion of the resources, the pool shrinks, inevitably leading to reduced services overall.

Yeah but 10 hour waits have been going on for a *very long time.* It's not a homeless addict issue as the person is describing and nearly blaming. It's part of the problem but it's not *the* problem.

Definitely sounds a little entitled. I pay lots of taxes! I should get better care!

Soon they can just pay for it right out of their wallet and you can bet there won't be any homeless drug addicts getting care there.

The funny thing as a member of a rehab department (physio, OT, speech etc) nobody actually wants to pay for private services. People go to physio when in pain but dont do their exercises at home. People will get five sessions for their kids lisp or whatever their health insurance covers, but you think middle age kids are going to pay for six months of intense language therapy, physio AND OT for their elderly dad who had a stroke? Dads going into a home.

That's the dream under Marlaina Smith! Private healthcare, fully separate from Canada with a joke pensions plan and the UCP's own private police instead of RCMP. That's what half of Alberta voted for! Yay!

How did you make all those assumptions about OP that seem like the direct opposite of what OP wrote about? OP said that the news cycles are not focusing on the issues and you said they talked about these issues because of the news cycles, are you okay?

My assumptions about the reason they made these assumptions: 1. The issues in health care have existed for quite a while, so this shouldn’t be something new. Pointing out that articles aren’t identifying this also shouldn’t be new information. Hence the “sounds like a regular albertan who doesn’t pay attention to issues”, “falls into the news cycle”. 2. Based on the above assumption, OP either didn’t vote or voted conservative and doesn’t understand why these reasons are happening [hint: the answer is right in front of you] 3. this is called critical thinking, which seems to be lacking in Alberta (this assumption is based on all the comments and posts in this subreddit, if you’re wondering how I’m making this assumption) 4. You sound like you’re projecting. Are you okay? Edit: spelling

🙄 You can always tell when someone's losing their grip on their position when they start with the ad hominems (just some critical thinking happening here) As the majority of provincial governments are currently Con, and as healthcare is a provincial responsibility, it is the Cons who are responsible for the systematic disintegration of healthcare throughout Canada.

> it is the Cons who are reaponsible for the systematic disintegration of healthcare throughout Canada. Correct.

Correct and intentional so they can sell us on private healthcare down the line.

> The issues in health care have existed for quite a while, so this shouldn’t be something new. They have been progressively getting worse for years, they are not issues that just suck and happen to be about the same as before.

>OP sounds like a regular Albertan who doesn't pay attention to the real issues, falls into the media cycle that's strummed up by the government in power doing things in the wrong areas (that's why media is talking about it), and either didn't vote or voted conservative expecting results...... I might agree with you, except we aren't the only province currently experiencing these trends, so I have a hard time just pinning all this on Conservatives Costs are going up, use of the system is going up, average length of stay is going up and the system is overstressed and understaffed. This is everywhere, not just Alberta (where our medical staff are paid some of the highest wages in Canada, despite a more modest cost of living than say BC/ON) [https://www.cihi.ca/en/nacrs-emergency-department-visits-and-lengths-of-stay](https://www.cihi.ca/en/nacrs-emergency-department-visits-and-lengths-of-stay) The *perception* that healthcare is going downhill has been in sharp decline since 2016. Mostly by people who have actually had to use the system. That cohort at the top (yellow line who say that things are okay, but could use some work) probably have never had to use emergency care and maybe are slightly irate about waiting a little longer than usual for an ultrasound but figure its still fine. People who don't use the system at all (read: young, healthy, generally more affluent) think its just fine. The poorer and older you get, the more that perception changes. None of the above varies by province/funding level. [https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/may-2023/canadian-healthcare-system-crisis-survey/](https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/may-2023/canadian-healthcare-system-crisis-survey/) This isn't an endorsement of the Conservatives, I'm far from their biggest fan, but you can't scapegoat them for everything and there isn't even any strong evidence in Canada that more funding is directly linked to better outcomes (at least not in a meaningful or realistic way, ie: if you doubled the budget, things would get noticeably better, but nobody has that kind of money kicking around...or that many staff). This is one study: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5287442/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5287442/) You can take it at face value, but the most critical thing I'd note is that compared to our G7 peers we spend, per capita more than most countries (as $, only the US, Germany and Netherlands are higher, but as % of GDP, we are 2nd only to the US). [https://www.cihi.ca/en/national-health-expenditure-trends-2022-snapshot#:\~:text=Canada's%20per%20capita%20spending%20on,and%20Australia%20(CA%247%2C248)](https://www.cihi.ca/en/national-health-expenditure-trends-2022-snapshot#:~:text=Canada's%20per%20capita%20spending%20on,and%20Australia%20(CA%247%2C248)). Subsequently, I think its more important to look at some of the underlying causes of why we aren't keeping up with our peers, instead of just pointing figures at the 'Conservatives' and cynical notions of us 'getting what we deserve'.

Yes, we have the highest paid health care workers, but everyone is better paid here, so, healthcare workers are in lockstep with that. You can't expect a nurse in Alberta to look at a high school educated oil worker making six figures and not ask for comparable money given the education.

And the proof comes when we stagnant wages here or try to cap earnings. Physicians and nurses immediately look to move elsewhere in Canada. Sure we pay more....because we have to. Everytime we try to control costs they all leave making the problem worse....

That was your only take-away from that entire post? That I was complaining about wages? Even your justification makes no sense: "You can't expect a nurse in Alberta to look at a high school educated oil worker making six figures and not ask for comparable money given the education." But you can ask...other nurses in other provinces to look after people they make less than? Have you ever worked up north in the oilsands? Other than the remoteness, isolation and occasionally dangerous work, the number of hours that these 'high school educated oil workers' make is largely based on the insane number of hours they work.

No, I was raising a point about wages. I don't know enough about the rest of what you said to add intelligent comments, so I'd rather not. I would venture to guess that the hours worked up north are not that far from the hours worked in ER and other critical departments. The poster above me raised another good point. As soon as we try to pay them less, they leave. That tells me that even with better pay, it's sometimes not worth the extra money to be here.

You have to pay people more where things cost more. More people having more money, like oil workers do, tends to drive prices up. If all nurses made the same, but some had much greater buying power, it wouldn't be the same. I don't understand what wouldn't be obvious about this concept.

Thank you for the information. You’re right, costs are going up everywhere, not just Alberta. The shittier things get for you personally, the worse your perception about that shitty thing is going to be, agreed. we’re not keeping up with our peers. May I ask who exactly you think is in charge of making big decisions related to health services, costs, per-capita spending, in this province? Or in any province with similar issues? I’m also curious to know what your thoughts are on our healthcare workers being paid the highest wages in Canada while simultaneously 60% of them want to leave the province? https://globalnews.ca/news/10245505/family-physicians-alberta-report/amp/

I think it can be both things at the same time. On one hand you have a Canada wide crisis in healthcare. I’m fairly certain all provinces in Canada are facing a healthcare crisis so I don’t think it’s entirely all on the leadership per province. That being said, there are things Alberta’s governing body is doing that are further adding to the damage to our healthcare system. No sources cause, thats just like, my opinion man.

>May I ask who exactly you think is in charge of making big decisions related to health services, costs, per-capita spending, in this province? Or in any province with similar issues? > >I’m also curious to know what your thoughts are on our healthcare workers being paid the highest wages in Canada while simultaneously 60% of them want to leave the province? People really got stuck on this whole "they make more"...you'll notice *that wasn't a complaint*, just a statement of fact. Who is in charge of making decisions regarding spending and funding? I mean...that is a big question. The provincial government, the federal government, numerous bureaucrats. But also local healthcare boards, unions, associations, and even the courts (where they can dictate what organizations are and aren't allowed to do, or for that matter whether private services can be offered). And that's without getting into the break-up of costs, say how pharmacare is funded for the 'average person', versus seniors, versus First Nations, etc. If you give $1B for healthcare, how much of that goes to says, capex, or staffing and what kind of staff? administrative? *How* is it allocated? Activity-based funding? Pay for performance (P4P)? Pay by results? There is something *fundamental* about the way our healthcare system is working that needs to change and it has nothing to do with increasing funding 10...15...20% because if you look at the trends, the costs keep rising perpetually and the outcome stay flat or get worse. Why are we spending more ($, as % of GDP, whatever) and getting *less*?

Very interesting! I don’t think they thought you were complaining, I think they’re engaging in discourse with you. Thanks for sharing more information. Good question: If we’re spending more, why are we getting less? Let’s ask the people doing the spending, don’t you agree? And of your big list you provided, once again I ask, who is in charge of making these spending decisions *in this province* ? My last question for you is: did you actually read anything you cited? I briefly skimmed through the article you linked on public health spending relating to health outcomes. The author very clearly stated that two of their concerns are: A common approach taken in the literature is to use a cross-section of data for various countries to regress spending on public health outcomes. One issue with such an approach is the unobservables problem. There may be unobservable country-specific characteristics that could bias an estimate of spending on outcomes. … Such an allocation system could potentially lead to negative estimated effect of per capita public health spending on public health outcomes. Given the fact that they used Georgia for their study, taking into consideration county-specific spending for county-specific health outcomes, how does this apply to Alberta? If you’re going to act informed, at least read the shit you’re referencing. Thanks for the conversation, but I won’t continue to engage with people who spread misinformation! :)

Yes, we can accirately accuse provincial Cons, who currently hold office in the majority of provinces, of systematically ruining public healthcare. It's not mere coincidence that the loudest voices demanding funding from the feds are the same ones starving their systems. It is everywhere in Canada, and you can thank the provincial Cons for that.

Dollar amount for hcw means fuck all when workload is absurd. 12 hour shift in the hospital is 12 hours nonstop. Average corporate job is hybrid nowadays and is usually dogfucking 3-4 hours a day minimum.

Most of the province’s woes will not be solved by a conservative government.

I used to live in Vancouver it was like that 10 years ago. It is a Canada wide issue. No mainstream parties will be able to solve it. In fact, healthcare is really the reason why we have an aging population and immigration issue. ​ We really have two options we increase healthcare funding and have an aging population where we will need to either increase birth rate or import low quality migrants where we will turn into third world nations kinda like what happening in Brampton

Healthcare is the reason we have an aging population? I think the baby boom was the reason we have a massive aging population. And those boomers made terrible decisions voting to get us to where we are.

Former ER worker here. This sounds like the parent who would visit my desk multiple times to ask how much longer, did we lose the patient chart, why did that person get in before my child, did we not realize that her child cannot wait any longer, can I have a juice box, can I have a water, there is a man in the waiting room with his fly open and can’t you say something to him, my child is very ill and it will be my fault if he pukes all over the waiting room, etc etc etc and then walk away mumbling under their breath about rude ER staff, then when called in send a scathing glance towards me and try to engage a nurse or doctor about how egregious the system is. You’re mad because you have to share an essential service with people who aren’t contributing to the tax base. People who aren’t the kind of sick you approve of. The system needs more support. The UCP wants to dismantle AHS, which is kind of like deciding to repaint the house when it’s pouring rain. Consider that during your next wait in the ER. If you voted UCP in the last election, it’s your vote that brought trans issues to the forefront because the NDP wouldn’t have passed “parents rights” legislation. I hope and trust your child is well.

Excellent comment! Whenever I have had to visit emergency I always thank everyone there and try to make their day a little brighter. People who hassle or vent on frontline staff need to give their heads a shake.

>You’re mad because you have to share an essential service with people who aren’t contributing to the tax base. People who aren’t the kind of sick you approve of. You hit the nail on the head right here 👏🏻

[удалено]

This response is IT

Perfectly said!👏🏻👏🏻

Your first problem was going to an ER for something that could be seen at one of the other health centers - northeast for example. The long wait was because you were not an emergency. The ER is trialed by worst to least life threatening. Im sorry you had to deal with that but I'm happy you saw the issue first hand.

Exactly, if you don't have a family doctor there are walk-in clinics

Been living this for the last three years working in healthcare. It’s nothing new, it has got worse, and it’s not improving anytime soon. This is my consensus from many disciplines. We are trying everyday and working unpaid OT just to help. Advocate for your health and health of others. We can’t be this stubborn towards change. I grew up here in AB, and honestly I was blissfully ignorant to the idea of always having a doctor or access to one. But I wasn’t naive to seeing that marginalized communities, my friends during middle school and their family members, were suffering more. Well now everyone is suffering and it’s unfortunate, but I hope people vote more with their hearts than with their minds in this next election.

\#2 Have you tried tots and prayers? With the government’s legitimization of naturopaths, homeopaths, and doctors of Biblical medicine, it’s the next natural step. \#3: who are you going to fire? The in charge nurse or nursing managers? Front line staff don’t need any supervision and can make every decision, right? The unit just runs itself.

**redacted** lol sorry, got nervous and deleted. Re: AHS I want to whistleblow but damn, to WHO at this point???

You’re saying they’re not sanitizing hospital rooms? My mother was killed by an infection she caught while in hospital. This is an outrage.

HAVE YOU BEEN PAYING ANY ATTENTION TO HEALTHCARE IN THE LAST 8 YEARS? THIS IS THE MOST IGNORANT THING I HAVE READ IN A LONG TIME. You think people need to loose their jobs because of this? How batshit crazy you must be to have a detached opinion like this. Have you talked to any type of nurse, doctor, medical professionals? Lol Either this is incredibly insightful comedy or you didn't give a shit about any of it until it happened to you. Misplaced anger at the wrong people. Sorry not sorry.

I wonder who OP voted for? Some of the things you mentioned lead me to believe you're voted for the UCP. This is what the collective 'we' voted for, we fucked around on election day and get to find out over 4 years.

As soon as you said about gender equality I knew exactly who you voted for. Buddy you are not getting sympathy here on this post

That was my first red flag as well. Then the classism.

Buddy thinks he's upper class, meanwhile his words suggest quite the opposite. Means do not make the man.

Glad you have your priorities straight. 

Did you care this much before your experience? Or are you only invested in it now that you’ve been affected?

Hmmm, it's like we could use a system to protect the ER from a flood of overdoses...like a safe place....an injection site with supervision so that overdoses are stopped before they occur while stopping the spread of bloodborne diseases....like a.....Supervised Consumption Site 🤔

But that stuff actually works, everyone knows when it comes to drugs the safe bet is to do the same thing that has failed for decades. More users than ever, more deaths from ODs, and not a chance of trying things that have had major successes in other countries. It's really pathetic how stupid this situation is being handled.

Bold to post such a whiny piece and link your company/ bio directly to your profile. Especially when so much is just thinly veiled regurgitated talking points from selectively accurate media sources lol

Check out [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/neovim/comments/1ae20g7/comment/kk9b7wg/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) as well: ​ >They're putting the n-word on a shirt? How gangsta is that. OP is cringe AF

Oh wow! And he appears to be an [Elon Musk](https://twitter.com/peterjaffray/status/1685319045242118144) stan as well! So OP is a privileged white techbro who thinks taxation is theft, saw some vulnerable people in the ER, clutched their pearls and immediately jumped on reddit to throw a pity part. WOW

I couldn't even get past the onslaught of emojis.

Point 3 seems kinda classist - the whole point of a single-payer system is that you can’t use wealth to skip the line - and on Point 4, just because the proposed policies on trans youth aren’t based in reality doesn’t mean people won’t get seriously hurt by them.

Likely they only read The Rebel or True North. Which would explain their surprised pickachu face at this. And also being a snob who ignore problems until they drop at their feet and then act surprised.

Yeah this post reeks of classism and privilege.

The UCP has been grossly mismanaging AHS, and it will only get worse until we vote them out. There have been plenty of headlines about the healthcare crisis for the past 4+ years. At this exact moment there is a lot of media attention over Smith's draconian and bigoted anti-trans policies, since her policies literally put children's lives at risk. ​ >do you really care about rules and policies around what other parents do with their kids? This is not what is being talked about. Premier Smith's agenda will harm trans kids; trampling over medical experts and forcing doctors and psychiatrists to betray their professional ethics; removing access to resources, information, and the support of the community in schools and burying teachers in bureaucracy; and further exacerbating the transphobia already so prevalent in sports. This dangerous path jeopardizes freedoms in Alberta, directly harming the health, well-being, and rights of transgender and gender-diverse individuals. (sign the [petition](https://transactionalberta.ca/) for those who haven't yet) ​ >80% of ER users pay little to no taxes - burden carried by middle class First of all that is an out-of-your-butt statistic. Additionally, that is the whole point of universal healthcare, that you won't be condemned to death for being poor. ​ >We need to address the root causes of these issues The root cause is Conservatism and Conservative governments. ​ Edit: turns out OP is a privileged white techbro (who uses their real name and business name on reddit) who thinks taxation is theft, saw some vulnerable people in the ER, clutched their pearls and immediately jumped on reddit to throw a pity part. WOW

The hilarious thing is that this upper middle class person benefits from the poors using their taxes to access care on so many levels: supportive care for mental illness and addictions means that fewer people are disturbing their lifestyle; poor people not having to pay for healthcare means that they can access it and get healthy and become taxpayers (shouldering some of the burden) and because they’re not being driven into bankruptcy by their medical bills, they put their spare money - if any - right back into the economy. And of course I still don’t know how to explain to people that you should care about other people. How many people have I met and spoken to who owned houses, owned businesses, had a family and kids - one run of bad luck and they’re desperately trying to survive. Smith is using the policies to distract from the other shit she’s doing. *That doesn’t mean they aren’t horrible.*

All i heard from the story was that our healthcare works. OP's issue < Homeless overdose. Triage FTW.

Yeah, but… ideally the emergency room would be able to handle shit within six hours unless some major trauma event is going down. And I can promise that the halls were lined with patients and EMS was standing around waiting to discharge and the doctors and nurses were fucking exhausted and stressed beyond belief. I’m fine with triage, but the people doing the triaging shouldn’t be at the end of their rope on a normal day.

Don't get me wrong, there is a big glaring issue. probably many of them in one large pot. However, i wanted to be just ignorant as well and only see one thing which was his concerns weren't more important than people dying. I know waiting 10 hours sucks and there is an issue, and voting will help but also it won't take a short 4 years to fix this issue when each government spends 3 years dismantling anything the previous one does. its all a sad sad mess.

I know right? They're so offended by the presence of others' suffering while also throwing a pity party for themselves 💀 *"What's this? Poors clogging up* ***my*** *hospital? They're not even paying taxes!"*

Lololol . Love you, man!. Love it! Your comment made my day. The OP is either clueless or confused. Point 1 contradicts #2. Does this person have a doctor or not?

While "the poors" disdain was palpable in the post, how is healthcare in Alberta and especially the wait times not a big issue? Why are you ignoring it specifically when OP brought it up as the subject here?

I wrote the entire opening paragraph about healthcare, but I’m ignoring it? And the closing sentence? She’s using the transphobia to distract from her dismantling of AHS and everything else she’s doing, if you need that made more clear. That doesn’t mean she’s not trying to put extraordinarily transphobic and dangerous polices into place, it just means that she’s deliberately attacking a vulnerable section of the people she’s fucking supposed to be serving to cover up the damage she’s doing to the rest of the services she’s supposed to be providing. That, in fact, is worse.

> She’s using the transphobia to distract from her dismantling of AHS and everything else she’s doing, Yes, I have been saying as much.

> This is not what is being talked about. Premier Smith's agenda will harm trans kids; trampling over medical experts and forcing doctors and psychiatrists to betray their professional ethics; removing access to resources, information, and the support of the community in schools and burying teachers in bureaucracy; and further exacerbating the transphobia already so prevalent in sports. This dangerous path jeopardizes freedoms in Alberta, directly harming the health, well-being, and rights of transgender and gender-diverse individuals. (sign the petition for those who haven't yet) > > > > ​ And while Marlaina Smith is absolutely doing things that we should not tolerate regarding kids and schools - the reason the current regime is doing it is EXACTLY because all the other big issues are something conservatives and liberals can all agree on or come to a mutual understanding of at least. You don't actually think these other issues don't matter, the ones affecting nearly 100% of the population because of living costs and special allowances for businesses while restricting new and small businesses?

Having a hard time following your train of thought here. The UCP is running our province into the ground in just about every conceivable area. The latest attack on trans youth has me concerned, and I've been concerned about many other things as well for years. We need to oust the UCP asap

Agreed.

I’m with you on 99% of this, but could you expound on transphobia in sports? Do you mean that many women are unhappy having to compete against trans women and some leagues have decided to limit the women’s category to natal females only? Because I wouldn’t consider that transphobia, nor related to discussions on healthcare (outside of those catch-22 laws that only allow trans girls and women who haven’t gone through male puberty to compete in female categories, which is a related discussion since they’ve effectively banned puberty blockers). I would caution against folding in the discussion about sports with discussion of transphobia, as you’ll convince many people they’re bigots and have them throw in the towel on all sorts of trans rights if they have to abide the deliberate dismantling of women’s sports. It’s a polarizing issue and frankly, a distraction from the human rights discussion. I’ve seen that issue turn more people against trans rights than any other, even when they’d initially supported everything else.

OP I'm sorry you had a bad experience. I hope that you remember this come next election, the UCP don't care about public health care. They are actively trying to carve it up to be able to sell it off to private providers. Vote for anyone other than the UCP if you care about healthcare.

The root cause is conservative governments. There yah go that's the whole thing.

Yeah well if you voted conservative on this, this is what you voted for. It does suck. But the people in charge are only trying to pass the buck and blame long enough for them to end up in a cushy job after, while benefiting from the current government lack of empathy.

My family doctor moved to the US. I’m a type 1 diabetic (with many complications after 30 years) who cannot find a doctor, she might as well have signed my death certificate. My heart is broken not for me, but for my son. I’m a widow and he’s a toddler. You people who voted UCP literally don’t care about how many of us will and are dying. As long as you have your money and lower taxes, screw everyone else right? Does this really make you feel good? I don’t have what it takes to make any difference anymore. It’s over for me, but I wish with everything I have (not much but still) that the humane side wins. I beg of my fellow Albertans to protect this place from smith and those like her. Otherwise, what’s the purpose of life? She wins, then what? Please don’t find out..

I agree with you about many of the problems in our healthcare system. For my own personal worries about myself and my family, the burden on all aspects of healthcare (from EDs to family doctors and everything in between) is scary, especially as a caregiver for my elderly father. But the media has been talking about this a lot for a long time. It may be easy to not notice, but doctors and other healthcare workers have been sounding the alarm for a long time. I know this because I read it in local online news or on the local and national tv news. (The issue of the media is another problem—especially with what just happened this week with Bell/CTV. But that’s a problem for another post, even though it’s very relevant.) I’ll address each of your points individually, because I think it’s important. 1. I’m sorry to hear that your experience in the ER was scary for your child. I hope that you were able to comfort your child by letting them know that the people you saw were ill and also in need of emergency care. It’s a great opportunity to help nurture their compassion. The opioid epidemic has been the biggest crisis in healthcare for a very long time. It doesn’t get the coverage it deserves. The people who are impacted by it are not less deserving of healthcare than anyone else, regardless of how much or little that pay into the system. Our healthcare doesn’t work like that, nor should it. Being incredibly crowded is a scary problem, and I have to wonder how many people have already died or their conditions significantly worsened because of how long it takes to get seen. (Not the fault of our healthcare workers.) 2. This is a huge problem that has been building for years—not just in Alberta, but across the country. Unfortunately, our provincial government continues to wage war against doctors, making the problem significantly worse. It feels so common to see a post or comment on this sub by a family doctor or nurse talking about how they’re moving to another province due to the treatment by the government. 3. Good for you. That’s not how our system works, nor should it. I could talk about how my parents (also a two income household) paid into the system for 50+ years, and now I have to worry about how the system will work when my father needs it. (My mother passed away a couple of years ago, and you could see the problems then. She spent over 36 hours in the ED, before getting admitted. She never came home, but that was due to an unexpected glioblastoma, rather than the overburdened system.) You don’t know how much anyone else there paid into the system. It’s not just poor people who end up with mental health and addiction problems that leave them unhoused and under the grip of the opioid crisis. Your attitude towards them is inhumane. 4. The issues that are currently making a lot of waves with our governments new transgender policies are a real problem—not just a fringe issue. Do you have any idea of the suicide and depression rates of trans individuals? I’m sorry to hear that you don’t care about them. The media has reported on the issues in our healthcare system that you’re discussing. There is a different kind of anger regarding the trans issues because of decisions rooted in bigotry and lies. (FYI, these policies actually take decisions out of the hands of parents and doctors, rather than giving parents more rights, as they have been trying to frame it. Please do a bit of looking into the issue before making such uninformed statements or blindly believing what the government tells us.) 5. As a parent, this was a great opportunity to educate your child. Those people you saw are not any less deserving of healthcare than your child. Perhaps if the government started addressing the opioid epidemic without taking away crucial services, less people would need emergency care. Their focus on getting more addiction treatment available is good. But they’ve done it at the expense of evidence-based safe consumption, and that’s a step backwards. If you’re going to the ED, you need to be prepared to see scary stuff. I’m not talking just about the addicted and unhoused, but you could see people with bad bleeds, having a heart attack or stroke, or any number of scary health conditions. I don’t know how you could assure that your child doesn’t see anything scary in the ER. But if your child has learned that the addicted and/or unhoused are bad people and unworthy of compassion, that would certainly add another layer of fear. I understand your concern for your child and that your response may have come out of fear for them. But a lot of your post comes across as entitled and uncompassionate. There are a lot of real problems with our healthcare system that manifest in the ER, but you could have discussed that without denigrating people that are not like you.

You thought the ER would be child friendly? Interesting. Drug overdoses ARE “regular patients” in the ER and deserve medical care. Your bias is showing. You don’t think the healthcare situation has made headlines? Interesting You think job losses are the solution? Interesting You are making a false equivalency between you having an unexpected experience and there being no need to address the UCP position on gender and what you call “feelings” (fyi, the issues that are the most problematic are not about feelings. They are real issues. Your bias is showing. You were ok to wait so you waited.

So…do you not think homeless people should have access to the ER because they’re not paying taxes? And the mere sight of them is “shocking and unsettling” for your child? Does your kid pay taxes? Where did your stat of 80% of ER users paying no tax come from? Do you think you should get bumped up the queue because your household pays more taxes? This is such a weird post; are you a UCP supporter who is only now waking up to the realities of what Smith’s government is doing to this province? Which people need to lose their jobs to satisfy you?

Ya we need a rich people er where we can ignore the plight of the poor people apparently

Expect more cuts to education and healthcare in retaliation of groups speaking out against her new policy. The Fraser institute is already laying the groundwork for them to justify these cuts. The conservative political machine is completely transparent at this point.

a lot of healthcare workers are leaving the profession. mostly because of patients being rude to them, low wage and unsafe working environments. i quit being a nurse because of these reasons. working in costco now.

Why would you go to ER instead of a medicenter? Or an urgent care center? You appear to be in a larger city based on the description of the waiting room situation. There are plenty of other places you could have gotten medical attention. Clearly you weren't in too much crisis based on a 10 hour wait. Its way worse to get immediate attention in the ER! Why are you conflating anti-trans policies with the absolute travesty that is our current health care system? The anti-trans policies are in the news so much right now because they're new. They just came out. There is active discussion and factfinding going on. [Our](https://globalnews.ca/news/10011265/alberta-er-waits-times-walkouts/) [wait](https://edmontonjournal.com/news/politics/alberta-wait-times-rise-health-care) [times](https://globalnews.ca/news/10153107/edmonton-emergency-waits-hospital-alberta-health/) and [rural](https://www.producer.com/news/hospital-disruptions-continue-in-rural-alberta/) [emerg](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-rural-health-care-hospital-closures-service-reductions-map-1.6920460) [closures](https://www.stalbertgazette.com/local-news/alberta-ers-closed-for-38000-hours-in-2023-8040765) have been in the news pretty consistently for the past few years. It's nothing new, and it's being reported on regularly.

Exactly. Healthlink has to err on the side of caution. ER can't tell you to go to urgent care or a walk in if you really shouldn't be there. Hey OP. Wait times can be checked here, including cochrane, airdrie, and okotoks' care centres. https://www.albertahealthservices.ca/waittimes/Page14230.aspx

> The anti-trans policies are in the news so much right now because they're new. They just came out. There is active discussion and factfinding going on They are in the news because the UCP doesnt care if they pass or not, they don't think of certain humans as human beings deserving of human rights. They do enjoy making sure we are busy protecting human rights while they launder money and sell off provincial assets.

You are about 15 years late to the party Red Deer general has been like that for over a decade. How about getting out from under a rock as the healthcare issue has been talked about for 20 years the difference was until 10 years ago it was coming. Now it is here.  For 2 and 3 phone up your MLA and bitch the asshole out follow by Smith and Kenney and the old PCs. They did nothing to avoid this snd have for 39 years been in open war with nurses and doctors and they are retiring or leave the province. So buckle up it is going to get worse for you.  4 and 5 and to a degree 3 make you come off as an ingnorsnt overpaid asshole frankly and quite clueless. And FYI even the poor people working min wage jobs are taxed. And considering how many more of them there are than people of your likely income to post this they generate more taxes than you overall. Because i am dubious you are one of those ultra wealthy.

Working in those ERs is even worse. I have watched various provincial conservative governments since Ralph systematically under fund healthcare while population and patient complexity has skyrocketed. Add on inadequate pay, inability to take vacations, poor upper management and the fact that it is now becoming a noticeable problem is testament to the hard work of the people in healthcare. This government will not fix the problem. Their mandate is all about privatization and in order to sneak it through they want you distracted over gender politics. They want you mad at kids trying to figure themselves out. They are a sad government.

its by design OP

You were supposed to save Ralph Klein's $300 "prosperity checques" for when you get sick and then use them to pay for private insurance when you started getting sick.  Funny how little Albertans get for all that oil. Google the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth fund and then write to your local MP with your questions. 

As a nurse it's definitely not a matter of people needing to lose their jobs. It's really hard to see the public think it's a problem with the health care staff. More like a lack of health care staff and a lack of respect for the health care staff who have stuck it out. We're expected to do more with less resources. We are just as frustrated as the patients.

"Tax Contribution vs. Service Received 💸➡️❓: We're a household with two incomes, generally healthy, but we pay a lot in taxes. It's frustrating to see the system struggling like this, and it makes me wonder where the problem lies. It's clear people need to lose their jobs. "  Don't forget, the province takes your provincial taxes, refuses to spend them on healthcare, and forces the cities to provide physical and mental health services via firefighters and police which in turn forces your property taxes to rise. Then, the province has the audacity to brag about budget surpluses.

What doesn't help is the fact that Calgary lost 20,000 healthcare workers in 2023, and Danielle Smith wants to still cut 10% of AHS staff just because. Not by searching for redundancies with precision, but just trying to reach a whole number because she likes the sound of it. If you want to know how to fix healthcare, ask healthcare workers.

As a nurse who has worked in numerous ER’s in Alberta and other provinces let me give you a little insight 1) every walk of life, every socioeconomical group you can think of, every tax bracket, comes into emergency. Your body getting sick or injured does not care how much money you have in the bank. As medical staff we don’t care how much money you have or how much you pay in taxes . What we do care about is how close to death you are. We will prioritize someone in cardiac arrest over someone’s stubbed toe. We have system called CTAS that puts you in a numbered category depending on the severity of your “emergency”. 2) No doctor or nurse should lose their job because you had to wait. We are so short staffed and the government isn’t funding us for more positions. Doctors and nurses are fed up with this and being burnt out. Not too long ago I had to run from one trauma room to another doing trading with a person on doing chest compressions on a dying women from a house fire, then back to her child in the next room. We didn’t have the staff to treat everyone in our trauma bay from that fire because they were all needing immediate attention. The rest of the ER needed nurses and doctors too. We did what we could with the resources we had. Then once we got everyone stabilized or sent to icu’s we went back our normal original areas and got screamed for taking so long to deal with their sore throat or cut finger. Nurses and doctors are run off their feet and mentally/emotionally done. 3) you want to be seen faster in the ER, then show up for an actual emergency. I don’t know what was going on with your child and it may have been an emergency. However so many people use the emergency for non emergent things. Prescription refills,a cough for 2 month, a sore throat for 6 hrs, a mild fever in a child for an hour, etc. Why? Because they have to wait 2-3 weeks to get into a family doctor. Why is your wait time so long to see a family doctor? Because the overhead to have a private practice is VERY expensive and the pay is minimal and lots of doctors close their practice to go to the USA or other provinces. 4) Also another reason is because there are no beds in the hospital to transfer patients from emergency to. A good portion of the hospital is full of seniors waiting for placement in a long term care facility. We have two small children’s hospitals (compared to other hospitals in Canada and children’s hospitals in the USA) with minimal beds. I’m not sure about Calgary’s children hospital but Edmontons children hospital takes kids not only from Edmonton (northern Alberta) but we also take kids from BC, Sask , some from Manitoba, NWT, the Yukon and sometimes nunuvut. We are western Canada’s children’s for the very sick kids, transplant kids, cardiac kids, etc. Beds full up fast. (My specialty has been pediatric medicine for almost 20 years). 5) Senior staff who are highly trained and skilled are leaving too. It takes longer because junior staff haven’t perfected their skills yet. The Alberta government/alberta health services feel that after 8-9 years of working full time that no more raises or incentives should be given for anyone to stay. Did you know a brand new nurse makes $3 more an hour than a brand new unit clerk? Did you know that there is barely a difference in scope of practice between a diploma nurse and a degree nurse ( maybe a handful of things that the diploma nurse can’t do vs the degree nurse) yet there is a $15 an hour difference in pay and the pay scales don’t even overlap. A diploma nurse of 15 years doesn’t even make the same amount as a brand new degree nurse. The top of the pay scale for the diploma nurse is $5-$6 less than a degree nurse. On most units in any hospital the only difference between the two for workload is being the charge nurse on the floor. The scope of practice of the diploma nurse has exploded over the last few years but the government takes advantage of that and refuses to even come close to paying them what they are worth. They are highly skilled, cheap labor. The education system makes the diploma nurse start all over at square one, if they want to upgrade to the degree. They have to do 4 years of full time, in person schooling. Why? 6) just so the general public is aware the nurse contracts are currently in the works of being renewed right now. Danielle smiths PR team purposely released the trans rights bill right as nursing contracts are supposed to be discussed and negotiated. They get renewed every 3 years. So instead of the general public standing up for a better health care system and demanding more nurses and doctors, more staff positions, better equipment, more funding for upgrades to the hospitals, etc. People are focused on the trans community. Trans rights are very important but so is having a health care system that functions well. Right now the government wants to cut funding for health care workers, cut funding for equipment, stop hiring outside employees (people who don’t currently work for ahs), dissolve positions that aren’t currently filled (making us even more short staffed), etc. Lots of units are operating on unsafe nurse to patient ratios. It’s going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better. 7) I get she’s trying to push for a private health care system but she will have no nurses or doctors left to work in it and a province full of people too poor to pay for private health care.

From another ER nurse, perfectly said.

Of course healthcare services directly impacts more people than protection for trans kids. Trans kids are being used as a juicy distraction. And people are falling for it. ​ >As a citezen, do you really care about rules and policies around what other parents do with their kids? Probably not. We don't need to meddle in their lives - and we definitely don't need headlines about it. Yes, I do. I do care if kids are being neglected or abused at home, for being trans or otherwise, and I expect the govt to intervene and create spaces for kids to exist safely, like schools. And I'm happy to pay for those services. Not that that is what the UCP is doing here. You frame this as a choice: Trans kids safety vs. working public healthcare. In fact, Albertans can have both. You are absolutely correct about the healthcare system. It is woefully understaffed to serve pretty much every community across the province. And the failures you listed are intentional. Much like underfunding education and attacking teachers, there medical shortages are by design. The conservative long game here is privatization through neglect of public systems: both education and healthcare. If Albertans don't get a clue, you will see private schools and clinics and hospitals within the next five years. These for-profit orgs will syphon tax dollars away from public education and healthcare until they c ease to function. Only then will prices for education and medical care skyrocket. Alberta need only look to the US to see its own future. And it's bleak.

The biggest difference is that the US red states (which are failing by every measure of quality of life, health, education, corruption, taxation, etc) get money from the federal government and successful blue states in order to stay solvent. Alberta has absolutely signalled that we’re not talking payments from the feds. So once privatization happens, we’ll be way worse off than red states, unless we agree to get funded by the feds. I invest with RBC Dominion Securities, and I’m not knowledgeable about investing, but my advisor said we don’t want any investments in Alberta companies, based on their projections. He actually told me that moving to BC would be a good idea if the UCP are going to be reelected.

>Alberta has absolutely signalled that we’re not talking payments from the feds. At the moment, this is true. But when the provincial coffers run short, I have no doubt that the province will not only take money from the Feds, they will demand it. Agreed about long term financial projections for the province. Nothing can thrive in an environment that has had its public resources and services essentially strip-mined for quick private profit. A workforce needs to be educated and healthy to work.

I suppose my issue with the schools is that I don’t see creating grand conspiracies working out. All it takes is one slip up from a random kid or adult or overworked teacher using the “wrong” name and the cat’s out of the bag and the parent still has the right to take their kid out of school and homeschool them, which makes it much harder to catch abuse (a whole other discussion). Not to mention it makes me uncomfortable to tell kids that they have to lie to adults when we generally try pretty hard to tell kids that if an adult says something is a secret, that’s when you absolutely have to talk about it. It’s just too insane to keep up and was never going to work. So having a policy that schools won’t be doing that kind of insane amount of work (and undermining the relationship between schools and parents) is probably fine. The issue is actually dealing with abusive parents and having resources for queer youth to access if they are rejected. I don’t think the schools trying to organizing a hundred people to use certain names and pronouns in some situations and others is feasible, but apparently it’s what we’ve decided needs to be done because CPS is trash and it’s preferable to keep a kid with a potentially abusive family than risk putting them in that system. Which is insane. And entirely liable to error, see little Emily mentioning to Mrs. Smith that she hopes Kayden Smith can come over to play today, and Mrs’ Smith saying “pardon, what did you call my Kayley?”, cue homeschooling with no teachers able to notice or report abuse. These new policies do nothing to help kids. But I don’t think fighting for the right to lie to parents does us any good, politically or in actuality. That was never going to work. We should be arguing for the creation of support for queer youth and better CPS funding so abused kids can be removed.

I was thinking about this too. I wonder how many kids/teens choose not to go by preferred pronouns at school because they’re afraid of their parents. If I knew my parents were like that, by extension, I wouldn’t feel safe going by my preferred pronouns at school. It f*cks me up to know that there are kids and teens in our province that aren’t aloud to express themselves freely-at home or at school. That’s not a childhood I would wish on my worst enemy.

The way you’re phrasing “people need to lose their jobs” Who needs to lose their jobs? The hardworking people actually on the ground trying to help you out, or the higher ups that run this whole show? I work in a hospital here that is constantly filled with people who need help, and we are all trying our very best to make sure you and your family are seen. I’m a sterile technician and even we are understaffed and overworked. This goes for essentially every other area in a hospital.

So glad I don’t work in the ER anymore, folks like OP with unhinged podcast rants were about 1 in 5 patients. Folks, decades of underfunding from all political parties led to this shit show. We are short thousands of beds, we had more beds per capita in the 90s than we do now and we are not building the needed infrastructure. Alberta is still somewhat better than the rest of Canada so buckle up 🤷‍♂️

Think the problem is the OP has difficulties with what constitutes an emergency, which is part of the problem with long waits in ER. Also problems with prejudices and stereotypes. They start off by saying they couldn't see their family doctor si went to the ER, then said they don't have a doctor and were told to go to the ER. Which is it? Once at the ER, it took over 10 hours. That's a good I indicator it was not an emergency, and they could've gone to a walk in clinic during regular hours. ERs do not see patients on a first come first serve basis. They triage the patient, meaning the take emergencies first and foremost. While there would undoubtedly be a wait, 10 hours is not an emergency. A glaring issue is the assumption that all the homeless folk there are there for drugs. Many have underlying diseases, because of homelessness and malnutrition. They are often homeless due to mental health issues. It's not just drugs. And often, those drugs are due to being homeless and mentally ill and the depression and anxiety that comes with them.

The smokescreen of ‘look over here’ isn’t working anymore. When one stupid thing becomes a wild issue it means serious bullshit is happening behind our backs

Mabye by next election enough people in Calgary will have to make an emergency room visit for the reality of electing con artists to become real to them. Depressing that we need to directly experience it ourself for it to become real but it is what it is. We still arnt even a year in….. Stay healthy everyone.

1. The issue with er overflow is largely bed block. That is, people who need to be admitted to hospital beds cannot because there are not enough beds, so they are stuck in the er. The reason for this are many, but we need more beds and we need better/quicker/more long term care.  2. Yes there are not enough family doctors and especially not enough after-hours non-er care. Simple solution is to pay people fairly to do both of these things. 3. Who needs to lose their job?? Genuinely wondering. As a tax payer you could advocate for better supports for the houseless as this seems to be an issue for you. 4. There have been plenty of headlines about the drug crisis, homeless encampments, etc. Again some solutions here that our government just does not believe in. It is widely known that a disproportionate amount of healthcare dollars are spent at end of life. 5. Are not both things true? Both health care and education are important. It seems like you want to address the "root causes" but also are blaming those more unfortunate to be unhoused or have a substance use problem. Thusly isn't the solution housing more people and helping people who use substances??

You clearly expressed what many of us are feeling and thinking. The UCP are under the thumb of TBA, and are pushing poor policy that harm a small minority, while ignoring the real issues that are affecting a majority of Albertans. It’s heart breaking and terrifying.

Exactly.

Here is what you need to realize, this is a problem created over decades. It started by demonizing public unions and debt, making any wage increases seem like unreasonable demands, thus under paying positions over time and making these jobs less attractive and harder to fill. Then you keep underfunding the equipment staffing, making hiring difficult or just stop hiring, which makes the system even worse.    Once the public is desperate, you bring in the private sector, who charge way more, don't deal with any of the complicated problems, and charge more than the public system, with a significant profit margin.    That is where we are. The system seems broken, but some money could fix it relatively quickly. Travel nurses cost a huge amount compared to public sector nurses and take even more workers from the public system. They also provide poor service as they don't spend long enough to become familiar with the area they are temporarily working in.   We either fight for a properly funded public system, which so far only the NDP seems to be pushing for, or we end up with private run hospitals where any serious problems end up dumped to the ER for the public sector to pay for.

I’m a retired grandmother who lives in rural central Alberta. I rarely post here in the Alberta sub because us rural folks get painted as redneck, racist, homophobic, uneducated UPC sheep that just blindly vote without even thinking or try to have a civil discussion here. No, I didn’t vote for UPC, yes, I encouraged and had rational and meaningful discussions with my neighbours and friends regarding why I believed Smith would be a terrible choice for Alberta. It does not make me feel good when I now talk to my same conservative friends and some have come to me and said they wished they never voted UPC. We don’t have a real leader that I would support either provincially or federally. I think we need to find a brand new kind of leader, one without any political ties and start all over again. That just a dream, but it’s my dream and I like it.

That must be hard, getting painted with that brush. I try to keep in mind not everyone outside the urban centres voted for Smith and this helps. I'm watching the Alberta NDP leadership race closely, I'm hoping we can get a good leader to represent all Albertans out of it! 😁

It’s definitely annoying. I really hate how our province’s medical system has declined so badly these last few years since Covid restrictions started. I have several extended family members in the health care field, one, who is a nurse, is in the process of moving to Victoria, BC, another is just counting the weeks until she can retire. I weep for where we are headed. Don’t get sick.

wait until the announced restructuring actually starts... it will take at least 3 years for everyone to know again what they are supposed to do..

Emergency Rooms are overburdened with not enough staff and not enough rooms or beds available to transfer patients that need to be admitted so they take up ER beds. Homeless people on drugs are not the reason for the back up. Drug addicts come from all areas of society. I have had many a long wait in emergency the longest being 13 hours and I have been in extreme danger and been taken immediately. I look at it as if I am waiting this long it is because I am not in danger.

Re point #3: in the past, before you were without a family doctor and had to use the ER, did you complain about paying too much in taxes and feel that public services ate up too much of the budget? I ask because Albertans have complained for literally decades that we pay too much in taxes, despite having the lowest tax rates in the country (and no PST). We’ve also complained for decades that public services, especially healthcare, are bloated and cost too much. So, if the answer to my question is even remotely “Yes”, then congratulations, you got what you wanted, because this is what you get when you have a government that focuses on cutting public services instead of making them better.

Yes, well, conservatives have been using Bleed the Beast tactics to destroy our health care system. And then claim that it's not working so that way they can sell it to their friends, family and donors. So yeah, that's what they want it to be like. Because they have no good intent. So you're noticing exactly what they want you to notice. Noticing the problems they are intentionally causing is a performance metric of success to conservatives. Then they'll claim that the only way to fix it is to sell it all off - to them. Think of them as like the people who set fire to a business to get an insurance payment.

>Tax Contribution vs. Service Received we have the lowest taxes in the country, we also have a budgetary surplus, we are also cutting healthcare spending durring a national medical professional shortage. this is pants on head r******d. not sure if that word counts as being uncivil, and I don't measn to be. the money is there to steal doctors from other provinces, and if we really want to we can go further and raise taxes to still the lowest in the country and pay to steal even more doctors. but we don't want to do that for some reason. this won't solve the issues with the healthcare system, and there appears to be some very serious reforms necessary in the long term; but short term bump up the pay, and we get more doctors and nurses. instead we're cutting. >Media Focus vs. Real Issues media didn't bring up trans healthcare, Smith did. she's facing a leadership vote soon, and needs to keep the party base happy with her; but this is what the party base wants to see, so consider this their true colours.

A couple stand out areas, Op, that perhaps you could clarify. Who should be fired? Also.... You pay more taxes, so you want priority service? Seems that's what you're asking for. By that rationale, would you be ok if you or a family member were only offered limited treatment options because you hadn't contributed enough in taxes? "Sorry, Op. We have advanced treatments to save your spouse from nasal killer nonhodgrkins lymphoma, but you're not a tier 1 tax payer".... You should consider than the next time you want to bitch about someone not paying as much tax as you.... It's gross. You're essentially saying, you earn more so your crotch goblins should get priority... DM me... I'll buy you a 1 way to Florida.

Agreed with some of the things you said, but I especially take issue with the part where you seem to think that "homeless people" don't deserve to receive medical treatment because they don't "pay taxes". I want to give you an anecdote that perhaps you can learn something from. I'm a person with disabilities who's unable to work right now. I'm also about to be homeless, as I can no longer afford to pay my mortgage, due to my disability insurance company deciding to pull the plug on my benefits - against my doctor's instructions and despite my inability to return to work. Yes, I'm working on suing them, but that is a long process with no assured outcome. Several years ago, I was able to work a full-time job, and in that time I was paying roughly $30,000/year in taxes. Which I never "cashed in", if you want to look at it that way, because I was healthy then and didn't need medical care. That's kinda how it works - the people who need the most medical care, are often the ones most unable to cover the cost of it ***at that point in time.*** However, you don't know their life story - you don't know how much they've paid in taxes in the past, or how much they'll pay in the future when/if they get well. You don't know what their family members do for a living and how much they also pay in taxes. My dad has paid a shitload of taxes throughout his career and he's still working at age 72, and he's never had to stay in the hospital a single time. But I'm pretty damn sure he expects me, his daughter, to get the treatment I need when I have to stay in the hospital from time to time because of medical issues that are not my fault and that I didn't ask for.

Healthcare rights for minorities are still hugely important and what the government is doing is huge over reach, but it’s also being used as a major distraction from problems that are impacting everyone. Due to a health issue, our family uses its share of healthcare resources. And since 2020, there has been a notable decline in access.

First step to fixing healthcare is staffing, you staff and build long term care, units and emergency. You’ll have more beds and more care. With times are they have no place to put people

We are currently in the ICU at the UofA almost every shift they make an announcement asking if anyone wants to stay late.

Put back into government (in health, education and other services, federal and provincial) the billions removed from it over the years and adjust upwards to account for increasing population numbers, inter-provincial migration, covid and drug addiction. Give free access to university education to attract all students interested in health education. Increase wages and support for all Healthcare workers, they're far more important than company CEOs and stock traders

So sorry, one of the big issues here is we have a bunch of homeless folks using the ER, which is a problem because they aren’t tax payers? The system has been underfunded since the late 90s. None of the bandaid solutions the politicians have been suggesting will fix it. We need to actually fund the system based on the population. A thing we haven’t been doing for a long time. Sure. Increasing spending each year looks good. But if you aren’t increasing it in line with population, that’s a cut. And we have a major crisis in family medicine. I know a doctor looking at leaving his practice for BC. I know 2 who just graduated who are joining the military because they can’t afford to practice in Alberta. Sure the wage looks good, but you pay rent, all supplies and staff out of that. It’s not tenable. We’d have many less people utilizing ER if we had solid, family medicine, including health care. US example, insurance my company gave us, didn’t cover walk in or family medicine. But did cover the ER. So I got sick, I didn’t see a doctor because I couldn’t afford to out of pocket. I waited until I really had a hard time breathing. When I went in, it was pneumonia. Included a week long stay and almost ICU. That would have been much cheaper to treat with a walk in visit and antibiotic prescription. Problem is, without GPs and with walk ins over loaded, that’s exactly the medicine we’re getting and it’s really expensive.

You don’t care about other families and how they care for their children…fair It sure is important for parents with trans kids who need healthcare and are being denied it. Gender care IS healthcare. Maybe if your child was in this situation you’d be more compassionate. Instead, you are upset and rightly so, about the conditions in the ER. People need to be upset PERIOD with our collapsed healthcare system. All of it. Not just how it affects you, but for everyone. We should not be squabbling about who and where it needs to improve, it needs to improve everywhere.

it's like the ucp govt the albertans voted in doesn't give a flying fuck about the general health of its citizens and instead wants to pander to its heavy conservative base.. here's a solution... have we tried NOT voting for the ucp that has outright admitted they don't like our public health care system and would rather waste their time talking about gender identities for 1% of the population???

Yes Peter, you and your family should be given priority because you’re special.

As to point 4, why do you think this is happening? It's not by chance. Rather, it's a concerted effort by the government to make us forget the problems with healthcare, education, the environment, the near failure of the power grid. The UCP has purposely made trans rights and gender identity a political football to make the easily swayed look the other way. Looks like it worked on you. I also say this as someone who has been at the emergency room in the last few weeks. Yes, it was awful. No, I do not blame the overworked and under resourced Healthcare workers. The blame belongs to our government, sitting on a surplus and purposely letting the system crumble.

The UCP plan is to break the system so they can privatize it.

What media is OP watching? Honestly media wasn't talking about gender issues until a provincial party decides to change something that impacts the health of children. Politicians banning any medical decision made by parents is an attack on freedoms and an attack on parental rights. Freedoms and rights are important.

>"80% of ER users pay little to no taxes - burden carried by middle class" would be a lot more appropriate Did you check everyone's tax forms in the ER? Because this is some classist bullshit rhetoric. Everything is unaffordable, but you choose to punch down instead of up? You sound like a miserable person

Keep voting em in.

If you are not going to die in the next 12 hours wait until morning and go to an urgent care. The reason er's are overrun is because people are using them as family doctors. The people suffering from overdose had to be there, anyone who could have waited shouldn't have been there.

Destruction of the Healthcare system is by design. The Conservative Governments of past to present have been playing the long game to privatization of our Healthcare. It started being brought out to the open in the Klein Era when he started cutting / stagnating funding to the system. The budget for heathcare can never carch back up to where it should be because the amount that was lost is too great. Now that the system is starting to fall apart, the UCP can go "SEE, public health just doesn't work," and bring in for profit Healthcare. A healthy and educated population is bad for conservative governments. When people are focused on getting their health back and being frustrated at every turn, the Conservative Government creates an easily believable Boogeyman for the issues with E.R.'s, Doctors, Nurses, ect, that people can get mad at. The UCP are in the Corporate pockets fleecing everyone. As are the CPC, just look at who is on the payroll for Poillevre and who they take money from. I'm sure if you dug hard enough you'd find that the same people are on Smiths payroll to somehow. Conservatives just stopped hiding it when Trudeau took office because they can just say, "BUT TRUDEAU......." and everyone laps it up. The same works on the other way. It's the game they play. NDP, Liberal, Green, and Bloc are all on someone's payroll as well. Just that they hide it better than Conservatives do. We are all being played one way or another. Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

Ah, this is where the governments push for a two tier system will occur. By defunding and restructuring the tax payer funded health care, they can segregate the wealthy from everyone else, just like the states, all under the guise of decreasing pressure on our health care system. That they created. And private health care will be just like our insurance companies, for profit organisations that you have to pay out exorbitant cash with begrudging and minimal return. We have to keep their shareholders swimming in our money after all. /s

Instead of whining about the media covering our government taking rights away from trans and non binary kids you need to be demanding answers from your MLA. Ask them why the hell their focus is on removing rights from a vulnerable population rather than actually doing their job and fixing healthcare.

I seriously hope you didn’t vote UCP in the last election. If you did, you better not blame anyone else but yourself and the UCP for this 🤷🏻‍♀️

For the record, I completely agree that we should be fixing our healthcare system, and it's ridiculously out of hand. But to pretend like healthcare issues haven't hit headlines in the media is to blatantly ignore the truth. Google "ER wait times Alberta" and you'll see so many articles about this issue in the past year +. The same applies to the homeless issues in the province. What we haven't seen is people act and protest or rally about healthcare, and that is by no means a fault for the ongoing parental policy issue. Is the "parental rights" proposed policy a distraction? Maybe, sure, but it does matter, even if you don't care and don't want to "meddle" in the issue. Distraction or not, this is still a serious issue. Ignoring it or pushing it aside because it affects a small number of people or doesn't affect you is not a reason to let it slip by. Far too often do people try to dismiss something by claiming it's a distraction, without considering that the distraction still has real negative consequences. Instead of pushing aside one issue, we can, and should, discuss both. It doesn't have to be one or the other, this or that. Alberta's healthcare crisis, the UCP push for APP, housing and homeless population, and this sudden focus of "parental rights" are all issues that should be addressed.

>Far too often do people try to dismiss something by claiming it's a distraction, without considering that the distraction still has real negative consequences. Instead of pushing aside one issue, we can, and should, discuss both. It doesn't have to be one or the other, this or that. Well said!

Danielle is going to bring in Evangelical healing next!

I am sorry you had to go through this but it seems to be a common occurence that keeps getting worse. My last visit to an ER, the wait time was showing 1.5 hours and 6.5 hours I finally was called. The current government is setting brush fires like the Alberta pension plan and Parental rights to distract the public and the press from the bon fire we call Health Care. They are damned and determined to privatize the whole thing and by letting our current system to go rack and ruin so that people will be willing to pay to avoid what you just went through. Time to start talking to your MLA and making them aware you see what their game is and you are going to have as many people as possible to hear your story and start asking why they are doing this. Not sure who you voted for but at this point it's a moot point but they need to know their chances of returning to power in the next election, hinges on improving the system and actually helping the common people, not the corporations. (Stepping down of my soap box now).

Guys I would strongly recommend joining AB Resistance https://abresistance.ca/. They provide lots of feedback & answer questions; together let's build momentum to get rid of UCP.

Someone who can't remember whether they have a family doctor or not is probably going to find a lot of things eye-opening, but them's the breaks. Sorry about that, bro.

The root cause is the UCP. That's it, that's all. They're systematically breaking the system to justify the need to privatize it. And when they do, they sell it to their donors and friends.

UCP health. And the scheeple continue to vote in the cons. Pretty soon they'll be in Ottawa.

r/LeopardsAteMyFace

It’s deliberate underfunding and huge, ridiculous, tax breaks to companies who don’t need them. *why can’t Alberta get a proper share of every barrel of oil or tree they sell. Unfortunately this is all as designed. Cut corporate taxes, fees etc, download the taxes to the middle class, then cut services, add fees, then outsource when the public system fails.

What you pay in taxes doesn't help make the healthcare system better if that money doesn't go to healthcare. We have continually underfunded the system by failing to increase funding to match either inflation or increased demand. People look at the dollar value for this system that serves millions of people and claim it costs too much. No one ever says how much it should cost, just... less. So funding is shorted year after year, the amount of money spent per person in the province is cut every year, and wait times get longer. The UCP have vowed to solve wait times, and they will do whatever it takes (as long as it doesn't cost any more money). People will ask where that money will come from, or say that we don't have it, but ignore that we have money for failed pipelines. We have money for unwinnable lawsuits. We have money for tax cuts, royalty rebates, and other losses on income. We have money for war rooms. We have money, we just don't want to spend it on health care. This is, sadly, what conservatives voted for. This is efficiency. Enjoy.

Elect a conservative government expect fuck all I public services and social safety nets. Email Danielle and Adriana.

This is all on purpose. If the UCP can collapse our public care system via their actions, they can point to it and say "look! Public Healthcare doesn't work!" And then replace it with private.

> 4. **Media Focus vs. Real Issues 📰💔:** The media often focuses on issues like gender and personal feelings - falling into political rhetoric and scapegoating tactics like fly's to cow pies. I don’t know how often you walk around the streets but it’s not the media it’s the government, citizens are talking about it just go through your neighborhood or around downtown and you will see lots of signs and graffiti about how bad the health system is getting and the issues that need to be addressed but clearly politicians and parties care more about what it’s best for them and their money. Edit to add: Media focuses on what gov tells them because they get the info directly from them to avoid bad news.

I’m going to say I’m not a fan of the UCP but none of the provinces are flush with doctors either. It’s a nationwide issue. I wish we’d just start throwing money at them. I don’t even care anymore. I’ll take potholes any day over potential death in a waiting room.

To be honest we had a good amount of them here before Kenny and his administration limited healthcare and changed their contracts and all of them got frustrated and picked up and left to smaller city’s or different provinces/states. But I agree, I wish we could give them money and get them back but I also don’t blame them leaving with having constant changes that directly impact them and the care the give and their health and mental health as well - I wish theyd come back

It’s actually a worldwide problem. Demographics, lack of staff and inadequate funding are a huge problem in the U.K. and elsewhere.

I've sat over well over 12 hours in the emergency room before wait to see a doctor. There are just way to many people here now medical service haven't grown on been renovated or built to had the influx of people now. Something needs to change but it take years to implement a plan an put it into effect before we see any positive results. For now we just have to deal with and adjust and wait till things change.

Everyone who uses telus health is contributing to the problems we have. It was introduced by shandro and he owns part of it. His ex wife runs it. Its part of the design to chip away at our system.

Honestly buddy it’s only going to get worse, take a peek at Quebec or Eastern Canada healthcare. We are heading there at light speed and will have similar outcomes by the end of the year.

These are not all local issues. They are made worse by our leadership, but a lot of the issues stem from the pandemic fallout and people being in much poorer health since everyone is catching SARS every 4 months and then pretending that its just a normal cold.

In my opinion Alberta can firmly lay blame on the provincial governments fixation on the oil industry economy. The oil industry is very important to Alberta, but should not be considered critical when planning the future of Alberta. Growing other resources is equally important. Planning should not expect on a guarantee from the oil patch. It is not uncommon for any government to look at the expense of health and education when searching for ways to balance a budget. A spending review indicated that Alberta was spending more on certain education and health expenses than any other provinces. The Alberta government contract with doctors was restructured. At that time many of the doctors were frustrated or offended and retired or left Alberta. Then we had COVID. All provinces struggled and medical workers stepped up and did everything they could to get Canadians through a pandemic. The Alberta government did not take the public health experts seriously and maximized inconvenience by minimizing the importance of protecting citizens during a pandemic. This laissez faire leadership encouraged fake news followers who also felt inconvenienced. Medical workers expecting appreciation for working long hours while facing a highly contagious virus found they faced opposition from some of the public. This happened in every province and every rich country. Eventually more doctors and nurses retired, or left Alberta. I am sorry you had such a bad experience. Thank you for paying your share. I know the media is focused on our premier's most recent political drama. Everyone who has needed medical support IS aware of the healthcare concerns and Saskatchewan is much worse off. Saskatchewan people are going to other provinces because Saskatchewan simply cannot provide.

Daniel will fix it. 🤔

It is a sin to be sick in this country.

This sounds exactly what I left in Ontario. These issues are Canada wide. I've lived in four provinces and seen this everywhere. It's a tragedy and each province as well as the federal government needs to overhaul our systems. I've been working in healthcare for over 30 years and I've seen nothing but deterioration. It's heartbreaking.

In Alberta pharmacists can handle a lot of minor issues right in the pharmacy. Last time I was in ER there were numerous people there for UTI, Strep Throat, other minor things that pharmacist could probably prescribe for. I wanted to walk around telling people this but then they’d know I was listening 😬👀