Alberta Health Services reinstates food policy in emergency departments after mother’s plea

Patients in Alberta emergency departments will receive the same food, drinks and snacks as usual, after backlash over a policy change forced Alberta Health Services to backtrack.

AHS says it is cancelling planned changes to food policy in emergency departments and other non-inpatient areas – which were approved in September 2024 and were supposed to come into effect Tuesday – after facing criticism.

The now rescinded AHS policy, viewed by critics as a cost-cutting measure, would have seen hospitals stop providing certain food and beverages to emergency-department patients, who would have been required to bring their own.

“After media reports surfaced, the Minister of Health raised concerns about the implementation of this policy and asked me to look into reports that food and drink may not have been made available to patients,” AHS interim president and CEO Andre Tremblay said in a statement Tuesday.

“The proposed policy was not meant to deprive patients of food. What was meant to change is how food is stored and delivered to patients in an effort to reduce waste that is occurring in our hospitals.”

Tremblay says he decided not to move forward with the changes after reviewing the policy and speaking to clinicians.

The policy change was lambasted online following an Alberta mother’s Facebook post on Friday, which has now been shared more than 2,200 times.

Amanda Moppett-Beatch said the new policy would “take away any food or drink to the kids battling cancer in the Alberta Children’s Hospital Oncology Clinic,” such as her young son who is battling brain cancer.

“We have witnessed and experienced first hand how a simple popsicle can calm a crying child who has just endured another needle poke, or an IV access, or a dressing change, a lumbar puncture. Or a ginger ale to calm a nauseous belly from all these chemo meds…” Moppett-Beatch wrote.

“How this passed into action, I can’t even imagine. Had they asked the nurses, the patients, the parents… Maybe they would have realized they could have cut back a bit on the ‘meals’ (that often go untouched, but are a necessary and relied upon meal for some)… but the popsicles? The ginger ale or crackers when they literally cannot stomach anything else?

“Don’t take away this small and sweet piece of joy to these unlucky kids enduring hell… find something else to pick on. Us Oncology families are dealing with enough…”

The Alberta NDP accused the government of being “unethical” and “incompetent.”

“The choices they make show the UCP government is more focused on cuts, chaos and corruption than providing care, comfort and compassion to kids with cancer,” Sarah Hoffman, the NDP’s shadow minister for health, said in a statement.

“Taking popsicles and juice boxes away from kids undergoing treatment is cruel. And this is about more than just popsicles. It’s about supplying something to eat for people fasting for appointments and people stuck in the emergency room who may not have brought money for food.”