‘It’s not acceptable’: Alberta health critic concerned about hospital staffing, bed closures

CALGARY (660 NEWS) — Surgeries are being cancelled and hospital beds remain closed province-wide, prompting Alberta’s NDP health critic to call on Health Minster Tyler Shandro to appear in public.

“This is where [Premier] Jason Kenney, Tyler Shandro and the UCP have brought us to,” David Shepherd said.

“The Health Minster Tyler Shandro must take responsibility for his actions and he must do so [Tuesday].”

Shepherd says he was shocked to learn Monday that all elective orthopedic surgeries at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton had been cancelled for three days.

He explains four operating rooms have been shut down because that hospital has run out of doctors, meaning 53 Albertans are now anxiously awaiting their chance to receive “life-changing care.”

“I’m extremely concerned that the chief of orthopedics is warning that [Wednesday] night there will be just one single junior physician responsible for the care of 120 patients,” he said.

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“It’s simply unacceptable that patients and frontline healthcare workers are being put into this kind of unsafe situation in Alberta hospitals.”

Additionally Shepherd explains, according to Alberta Health Services there are 163 beds closed in dozens of hospitals across the province due to critical staffing shortages

“These critical staffing shortages are the direct result of [Shandro’s] botched handling of the pandemic alongside his war with Alberta doctors, nurses and other frontline workers,” he said.

“What AHS isn’t reporting is how many other hospitals are balancing on the brink of an unsafe situation working their nurses and doctors and frontline health care workers further into exhaustion. Contrary to the claims of the health minister, this is not normal and it’s not acceptable.”

Shepherd says several other locations are experiencing closures or disruptions in healthcare services.

However, he says there are some concrete things Shandro could do to mend bridges and collaborate with frontline healthcare workers.

“We need to see this minister actually resolve the situation that he created with physicians in the province of Alberta. So a good step towards that would be first of all repealing the legislation he passed which lets him arbitrarily tear up the contract with physicians whenever he chooses or feels like.”

“I think walking back their attacks on Alberta nurses, they’ve still refused to back down or to say they will not follow through on their original intents to layoff up to 750 nurses in the province of Alberta.”

Alberta Health Services says it has the surgeons, nurses, and anesthetists, but no doctors to take care of patients during recovery − specifically overnight. AHS says this doesn’t impact emergency orthopedic surgery.

“Our health-care workforce is tired,” said Dr. Curtis Johnston, the AHS deputy zone medical director for the Edmonton zone. “They’ve worked extremely hard and they’ve done the best they can to serve Albertans. And we have limits as humans.”

Johnston paints a picture of fatigue on the front lines as the pandemic continues, leading to not being able to fill vacations or vacancies.

-with files from CityNews Edmonton