Misinformation and fear run rampant in 2023
Editor:
It is of critical importance that the record be set straight regarding many statements made by the NDP, especially where Lethbridge and area is concerned, since February of this year.
The first is the doctor shortage in Lethbridge; the doctor shortage in Lethbridge has existed continually since 1994 when I was a member of the Chinook Regional Health Authority Board.
Many factors influenced a physician coming to Lethbridge - clinic space, opportunity for lifestyle and income, access to amenities and determinants that drive quality of family life. You cannot blame the UCP for the choices doctors make, nor can you force or incentivise them to come to Lethbridge.
Rural locums were and are the norm: docs do not want to reside in isolated small communities, far from the region’s main tertiary two hospital facilities.
Specialists need practice opportunities and volume as well; this also speaks to facility capability and capacity. Calgary and Edmonton are the centres for specialized care.
This is changing with the introduction of the Ady Cancer Clinic and recent announcement of the Cath lab (Cardiac) clinic being added to the Lethbridge group of services.
Both these treatments previously required transport or travel to Calgary. Demand drives these services like most other businesses.
Finally, the specialists must be present here, as well.
One clinic brings oncology and radiology specialist requirements, the other requires cardiac specialty.
The recently released publication of Chinook region doctors and their clinic locations revealed many clinics now have more female general practitioners than males.
Young women generally have children, take maternity leaves and work less hours than males.
This observation, like most others, is conveniently missed in the NDP propaganda machine.
The doctors agreement negotiation as well as the nurses, health sciences, AUPE and many more bargaining units are an ongoing cycle of health delivery in Alberta.
Nothing is new. The current UCP government inherited most of these agreements and have been vilified by the NDP as creator of unfair bargaining practices - not factual again.
Health delivery in Alberta costs $46,613 per minute, governments are constantly challenged with balancing service delivery and affordability and the past has proven promising more staff, more doctors, more services, more dollars, does not historically provide for increased efficiency in any of these areas.
When the health system pays $400 for the same pair of scissors you can buy at the drug store for $24, you start to understand why the system is challenged.
The NDP Lethbridge West member Shannon Phillips has proven to be the master of misspeak and misinformation since elected in 2015.
During the COVID crisis the Lethbridge West constituency office was closed, emails not answered, concerns dropped off in bags at MLA Nathan Neudorf’s office, phone calls not returned, and Phillips is asking us to trust her in 2023.
Phillips was a leading partner in the reign of destruction by the NDP party from 2015 to 2019, leaving the province with an increased net debt position after four years in power, without neither COVID or a flat resource economy to use as an excuse.
How could we possibly trust the Phillips NDP (Philips is current Finance Critic) to responsibly manage the Alberta spending budget?
Tax and spend, and promise the sky is the NDP operational plan. Albertans cannot afford this now or ever going forward. Albertans have woken up to the NDP character assassination plan of leader Danielle Smith and realize the focus on trust has not resonated for their leader Rachel Notley. Mark Switzer
Lethbridge