Tories target hospital waits
Health Minister Stephen Mandel said Friday that Albertans should not be forced to wait “hours on end” in hospital emergency rooms and the province will move to build a number of extended-care facilities, but opposition critics remain dubious.
“We will be putting forward proposals about how to build substantial numbers of extended-care facilities to deal with the challenges Albertans face,” Mandel said in an interview.
Mandel was responding to a Herald report that Alberta Health Services plans to not proceed with cutting nearly 1,000 long-term-care spaces over a four-year period.
At the same time, AHS officials revealed that there has been a reduction of 364 nursing home beds across Alberta over the past two years.
Eighty of those beds are from Calgary, and another 64 in and around Red Deer.
“I’ll have to find out why (AHS) would have closed those beds,” Mandel said. “But the fact of the matter is I’ve been given instructions by the premier to deal with the bed blockers in the province, which really is quite substantial.”
Mandel added the province will also strive to improve homecare programs so those who don’t need to be hospitalized can remain at home.
AHS documents show only 43 per cent of patients who arrived at Alberta’s busiest ERs last year and required hospitalization were admitted within the superboard’s target of eight hours.
“I agree that we need to do a better job — and we will. But part of that is making sure we have places for people to go,” he said.
“We need to make sure that we don’t have people in our emergency rooms for hours on end when we need to have them in facilities that are adequate and proper to make sure that health care is taken care of.”
But the official Opposition said the province must do more than simply stop AHS’ planned cuts from occurring to address the broader issue.
The province must boost longterm-care capacity to prevent problems such as clogged emergency departments and hospital units, particularly as the population is aging and needs more care, said Wildrose MLA Kerry Towle.
“The minister can come in and say this and maybe there is a new premier, but the reality is Alberta Health Services doesn’t get it,” Towle said.
“For the last two years, they’ve even denied that they have been closing long-term-care beds ... they’re saying this because they want people to get off their backs.”
Towle is skeptical that Mandel will deliver on his pledge to reduce ER wait times, or build more extendedcare facilities and improve homecare — given the past promises broken by PC ministers.
“Those are the same words that (former health minister) Fred Horne said,” she added.
Fully one in 10 beds in the city’s hospitals last year was occupied by people who are ready to be discharged, but are stuck because they have no appropriate place to go.
Dr. David Swann, health critic for the Alberta Liberals, said the provincial government has to focus more resources on prevention and early intervention measures to ease pressures on emergency rooms.
“There’s no question at this point, we have to get more people out of the hospitals and into various levels of care,” Swann said.
“But if that’s all they see is emptying the beds out of hospitals and they don’t see the longer-term commitment to community-based services, early intervention and prevent programs, then we’re just postponing more of the same,” he added.