Alberta E.R. wait times will miss their mark
Posted Feb 16, 2012 7:16 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Don’t expect wait times in the Wildrose province to disappear anytime soon.
Alberta Health Services has revealed it will not be able to make it’s target wait times by the end of next month.
The government had wanted to have 60 per cent of patients, sick or seriously injured, admitted within eight hours.
In Calgary, the Alberta Children’s Hospital is the only facility to routinely reach that goal.
In Question Period, Health Minister Fred Horne told the Legislature, an increase in volume is hurting patient flow.
Horne pointed to a system that’s been facing a 17 per cent bump in numbers thanks to an increase in population and aging numbers.
Friends of Medicare Executive Director David Eggen tells 660News he’s puzzled, adding this is a problem we’ve known about since World War Two.
“It’s not a new news story,” he laughs. “People have been moving here for the past 25 years, so I don’t think that’s a very valid excuse.”
The announcement isn’t sitting well with the Opposition either.
Liberal Leader Raj Sherman, also an Emergency Room Doctor, says the Conservatives have had long enough to fix the issue.
Sherman says the system is plugged up with seniors who shouldn’t be there and real change is needed in this province’s hospitals.
“There’s a difference between dealing with a systemic shortage in hospital beds and just trying to patch the holes in the bottom of the canoe, which is what Minister Horne has been doing,” says Eggen.
The long-time political advocate says until the government deals with the shortage of long-term care beds the rest of this is just cosmetic surgery.
He adds, their final goal of reaching 90 per cent of the patient load within that eight hour time frame is highly unlikely until they fix any real problems.
