Long wait times becoming old hat

Re: “Alberta Health has ‘work to do,’ as surgery waits grow,” April 12.

Reporter Keith Gerein tells us of worsening Alberta wait times for common surgical procedures.

Alberta Health Services acknowledges issues with surgical capacities. Albertans know this too well. Wait times soared for Calgarians when the former government reduced hospital beds by half, despite a surging population.

Then chronic underfunding of new and old infrastructure served to further reduce usable capacity.

We are not the only province in such a state. International agencies now score Canada in the bottom tier of 11 advanced nations. We rank ninth, besting only France and the United States.

The 2018 C.D. Howe Institute report also states that Canada’s health-care system ranks poorly by comparison to peer nations. Most condemning are the wait times.

Neither Canada nor Alberta will break out of the bottom tier without substantial investment in caregivers and infrastructure.

Ralph Coombs, Calgary