Alberta’s health-care circus

Some days, there’s just no way to bury all the medical waste. Problems blew up everywhere Thursday, from the health-care inquiry to the superboard and the controversy over executive expenses.

Ex-premier Ralph Klein was dragged into it when Raj Sherman, the emergency doctor and Liberal leader, implied Klein received preferential care for a broken rib in 1999.

Klein fell in his hot tub and went to hospital for treatment. Sherman told a lively tale but offered the inquiry no evidence that Klein went to the head of the line.

Neither did NDP Leader Brian Mason, who also alluded to Ralph’s rib.

Klein has dementia and can no longer speak to defend himself.

But ex-chief of staff Rod Love recalls that Klein was hurt pretty badly. “He had to give a speech to the party a couple of nights later, and he almost fainted from the pain.

“So yeah, he went to the hospital and got treated. Shouldn’t he?”

This shows another twist that makes front-line health providers nervous. If a VIP shows up in emergency, the regular sick folks instantly suspect an entire wing will be flung open and pressed into action, stat.

The only way to avoid this is to usher the VIP into a quiet area where he or she won’t be seen. But that can also become “proof” of preferential care, even though the big shot might be waiting like everybody else, just in a different place.

So what’s a famous person to do in a medical crisis?

The best advice is not to have one. As a fallback option, live in a country with special hospitals for the powerful and wealthy (the U.S., for instance, or the old Soviet Union.)

Sherman also said deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk, when he was a backbench MLA, asked him to help get care for a constituent who had been beaten up. But in telling the story Thursday, he didn’t offer evidence that Lukaszuk tried to use him to jump the queue.

Earlier, Sherman had claimed in media interviews to have personal knowledge of queuejumping. The inquiry even showed the tapes.

Plenty of effort went into making him look bad. No other witness has faced such tough followup questions. But the reality is that when Sherman’s big moment came, he didn’t have the goods.

Sherman even acknowledged that he sometimes diagnosed other MLAs, and even wrote prescriptions for them, in his legislature office. That’s not preferential access, Sherman said. It’s professional courtesy. Oh. Next witness, please. Earlier, there was testimony that Sheila Weatherill, former CEO of Edmonton’s Capital Health, regularly asked senior managers to “keep tabs” on VIPs and donors. But the official who told this story, Brigitte McDonough, also said nobody got special care because of Weatherill.

This points to another reality emerging at the inquiry: Front-line medical workers hate the thought of granting access to a sick famous person before a sicker regular person. They’re unlikely to bend on this principal, even under orders.

Weatherill was also a factor in the formal audit of Allaudin Merali’s expenses, which were released Thursday. She allowed some of the former executive’s claims by signing off when he had no documents.

In other news, AHS revealed wait times for some surgeries are shorter, but emergency ward performance is still far short of targets.

So that was Thursday — or some of it. Just another multi-ring performance in the circus of Alberta health care.