AHS blames logistical issues for falling short on contract tracing hires
Alberta's provincial health authority missed its target of having 1,600 COVID-19 contact tracers by the end of December, citing logistical challenges.
As of Wednesday, it had about 1,250 contact tracing staff working to track the source of COVID-19 transmissions and is still aiming to bring the number of staff to 1,600 over the next few weeks.
By early February, it hopes to have over 2,000.
Spokesman James Wood said in a statement Alberta Health Services is working to hire and train hundreds to meet the volume of COVID-19 cases in the province.
“With such a large volume of hires in a short period of time, AHS has experienced some delay with expediting the onboard process for staff due to various factors, including available orientation spots, computer equipment availability, IT and security clearances, etc.,” he said.
Alberta's inability to quickly hire extra contact tracing staff to deal with rising case numbers has drawn the ire of critics denouncing Premier Jason Kenney's pandemic response.
As of Wednesday, the province reported 1,123 new cases, bringing the total of active cases to 13,450. Of those active cases, 7,769, or 58 per cent, had an unknown source. A total of 1,193 deaths have been recorded in Alberta, with 911 people currently in hospital including 141 in intensive care.
Alberta NDP Opposition deputy leader Sarah Hoffman said Wednesday the UCP government could have prepared by ramping up hiring before the second wave of COVID-19.
“They could have done it in the spring. They could have done it in the summer. They could have done it in the fall, and here we are in the middle of winter, and the government is still making excuses for falling short,” said Hoffman at a Wednesday news conference.
In November, Alberta contact tracers became so overwhelmed with the rising number of cases that the province stopped tracing except for cases in high-priority settings such as long-term care and health-care facilities.
Amid the backlog, school administrators were tasked with calling families to trace potential contacts in confirmed cases of COVID-19, a situation that overwhelmed some principals.
With kids heading back to in-person classes next week, Hoffman said the government needs to provide provincial contact tracers dedicated to school communities rather than relying on parents and school staff.
“It's not responsible and we can't expect to do the same thing again,” said Hoffman.
Wood said this week AHS is working to address delays and bring staff onto the team while maintaining standards and safety protocols.
The province had 50 contact tracers before the pandemic, 300 by July and 700 by September.
Alberta is one of a handful of provinces and territories that have not adopted the federal tracing app. Calls for the government to do so grew even louder in November after reports surfaced that the provincial app, Abtracetogether, had only been used to track exposure 19 times since it was launched in May.