Alberta gov’t responds to emergency doctors letter on waiting room deaths

The Alberta government is defending its handling of the province’s strained emergency rooms after a leaked letter from ER physicians detailed six preventable deaths and more than 30 near misses in the first two weeks of the year.

Hospitals Minister Matt Jones addressed the concerns Tuesday, saying the anonymized data provided by doctors is “concerning” and acknowledging that long wait times do affect patient outcomes.

While he would not comment on unverified case details, Jones emphasized that Alberta’s health‑care system has established processes to investigate serious incidents.

“Rest assured we have a process in place whenever there is an adverse event, whenever there is a near miss, or a suboptimal outcome,” Jones said. “We try to learn from those as a system, and we certainly investigate those, as warranted.”

Jones made the remarks while announcing the completion of a major expansion at Calgary’s Peter Lougheed Centre. The project, which began in 2023, adds 97 new beds that are expected to open in phases by the end of next month.

He also reiterated the government’s broader plan to add 1,000 new beds across the province, including a new urgent care centre in east Calgary.

The province’s response comes amid growing alarm from frontline physicians, who described emergency department hallways and waiting rooms as “death zones.” Their letter cited six cases in which patients died waiting for care, echoing the widely publicized death of 44‑year‑old Edmonton resident Prashant Sreekumar, who waited nearly eight hours in an ER with chest pain before dying on Dec. 22.

Despite the government’s assurances, the Alberta NDP says the situation requires immediate and extraordinary action.

The Opposition is calling for a state of emergency in the health‑care system and for the recall of the legislature. They argue the declaration should remain in place until hospitals operate at less than 100 per cent of planned capacity, with fully staffed overflow beds available.

NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said health‑care workers have been sounding the alarm for weeks and that the reported deaths cannot be dismissed as unavoidable.

“People don’t die in the waiting room. People don’t die before they’ve been seen,” Nenshi said. “Those were six specific cases in a short period of time where people died waiting for service.”

The NDP is also urging the government to establish a single central command structure for emergency‑care decision‑making, saying the recent restructuring of Alberta Health Services into four separate agencies has left frontline staff without clear leadership.

With files from The Canadian Press