Alberta promises new beds, surgeries and urgent care centres; critics call it ‘plans to make plans’

The Alberta government announced a major healthcare boost with more surgeries planned, new urgent care centres, and more hospital beds, but critics say it’s just plans to make more plans.

Premier Danielle Smith unveiled a new Acute Care Action Plan Friday, pledging more than 50,000 surgery procedures over three years, the construction of eight new urgent care centres, and more than 1,000 additional hospital beds — including new capacity at Calgary’s South Health Campus.

“Our acute care action plan is about putting patients and providers first, and that’s why we refocus health care. It’s why we put so much effort into helping it work better,” Smith said in a news conference.

“Problems are meant to be solved, not tolerated. We will fix the challenges that are developers who come through for everyone who suffered an overburdened health care system.”

The province says this plan is aimed at easing pressure across the system, improving patient flow, reducing bottlenecks, and better connecting care between emergency rooms, surgical units, inpatient beds, and community supports.

But the Opposition Alberta NDP’s shadow minister for Hospital and Surgical Health Facilities said Friday’s announcement is heavy on promises and light on details, like a timeline or a budget.

“More updates and planning to make plans. So that was really disappointing,” she said.

“Health unions that have been negotiating with the government and are on the verge of potential strike action, and the government did nothing today to make me feel confident that they’re that they care about a looming strike or multiple looming strikes, and that they’re going to do anything to make sure that that these plans to make plans actually end up with staff working in them.”

Health advocacy groups are echoing those concerns, including Friends of Medicare, who say the timing of the announcement raises questions.

“We find the timing very convenient that it’s the Friday before … the Monday strike deadline, or we may have a nursing care strike in Alberta announced next week,” said executive director Chris Galloway.

“It felt kind of like a thrown-together press conference with a whole bunch of bullets thrown into something called an ‘action plan,’ and four ministers standing up to claim the government’s taking action on health care. And it really felt like a political strategy around the labour negotiations more than a genuine action plan for acute care.”

The plan also calls for more than a thousand new acute care beds across Edmonton and Calgary — including expansions at the Grey Nuns, Misericordia, and South Health Campus.

But as the possibility of strike action looms, questions remain about who will staff those beds.

“Obviously, we can’t provide health care without our talented health care professionals,” Matt Jones, Alberta Minister of Hospital and Surgical Health Services, explained.

He said the province has recruited or onboarded 1,000 RNs, LPNs and healthcare aids over the last year, and recruited over 600 new physicians.

As for the eight new urgent care centres, one is planned for East Calgary, two for Edmonton, and others for Westview or Stony Plain, Cold Lake, Fort McMurray, Medicine Hat and Lethbridge.

When it comes to construction timelines, Minister Jones says “soon.”