AHS report lists hospital problems
Alberta Health Services announced Tuesday it is developing a comprehensive strategy to handle the future health needs of Edmonton’s growing and aging population, while admitting it is struggling to address the system’s current shortcomings.
The still-in-development Edmonton 2030 plan is an attempt to gauge what services and facilities might be required 15 years into the future, when the capital region is pegged to have a 33-percent larger population and a 121-per-cent increase in senior citizens.
But finished sections of the report released Tuesday by AHS also show the health authority is facing a long list of infrastructure and capacity problems, including sewage leaks in the Misericordia Hospital’s operating rooms, and bus diesel fumes affecting embryos at the Royal Alex’s in vitro fertilization clinic.
“We want to ensure we are providing the right programs and services at the right time and in the right place to meet both current and future demands,” said Deb Gordon, chief health operations officer for northern Alberta.
The section of the 2030 plan detailing the current problems was completed almost 18 months ago, but AHS decided to make it public only after it was obtained by the provincial NDP through an access-to-information request. The release also comes in the midst of a Journal investigation into the troubling state of the province’s hospitals.
The report identifies issues at 18 health facilities throughout the capital region, though AHS put special emphasis on the Misericordia, Royal Alexandra Hospital, Alberta Hospital Edmonton and the Edmonton General Continuing Care Centre as its four most problematic facilities.
Highlights of this section include: At the Royal Alex, the emergency room needs a major redesign and expansion, the hospital has closed beds it could be using, the kidney program is at full capacity, and the morgue cannot handle obese bodies; At the Misericordia, hallway spaces are used for patient care, medication storage is not secured, and an area that handles soiled materials does not have a waste disposal system; At the Edmonton General, the dialysis unit has insufficient private rooms and has been subject to flooding, and there have been unspecified issues with vermin; and At Alberta Hospital, the site is largely dysfunctional with poor access between key buildings, patient crowding is leading to safety concerns, and the facility has insufficient duress alarms for staff and visitors.
The report says many of Edmonton’s health facilities are also under considerable space pressures, making it difficult to meet demand.
“Contrary to what this government continuously, and I would say disingenuously, assured Albertans, is that this health-care infrastructure issue is in fact negatively affecting patient care in the city of Edmonton,” NDP Leader Rachel Notley said.
She noted that emergency rooms in three of the five major hospitals have major operational issues, while the Northeast Community Health Centre is now seeing more than 53,000 patients annually — twice the number it was designed to handle.
AHS said the province has already provided $260 million to address some of the issues in the report, while health zone foundations have contributed $30 million.
The report uses a coloured-coded rating mechanism of red, yellow and green to grade both the functional design and physical state of the various facilities. A detailed database is being created with the information. With files from Mariam Ibrahim kgerein@edmontonjournal. com