Allied health care workers who are female, disabled or visible minorities face systemic wage inequity and pervasive discrimination, according to a new Parkland Institute report.
Many also say their jobs are very stressful, emotionally draining, and they oppose the province's health care reforms, more than a third of survey respondents for the report often think about quitting their job.
Paramedics, pharmacy technicians, administrative support, counsellors, lab assistants and lab technologists are at the highest risk of quitting based on the report — Undervalued and Overstretched: Inequity, Discrimination, and the Crisis Facing Alberta’s Allied Health-Care Workforce.
“When one in three people in your workforce is thinking of quitting, that’s not a blip. That’s evidence of structural strain that calls for more than temporary fixes or one-off interventions," said Jenny Godley, the report's lead author and professor at the University of Calgary, in a statement.
The report draws on data from almost 30,000 members of the Health Sciences Association of Alberta (HSAA) and a large-scale survey of nearly 1,800 respondents and in-depth interviews with 23 participants.
Disciplines where HSAA members work are at least 75 per cent female, except for paramedics who are 50 per cent female, and the report calculates that women earn an average of $1.40 an hour less than men, taking into account age, education and profession.
"This study shows black and white that there is an issue here, and it's as clear as day," said HASS president Mike Parker about the gender pay gap.
He said HSAA workers in the same job category receive the same pay, but they face discrimination when it comes to who gets a promotion, who can access training, who is selected to advance management.
"There's an active choice to leave them behind. That's what's going on in the background."
The report should be a wake-up call to the provincial government, said Parker, who met on Friday with HSAA members who recently trained health care students now leaving for jobs in Vancouver.
"What (government) doesn't recognize is that health care is not just made up of doctors. If one third of the people who are HSAA members on the front lines of health care chose to exercise their ability to walk of the job, this system shuts down in days. This system fails without these folks.
"If we want to protect and improve public health care in Alberta, we must start by respecting and retaining the highly trained professionals who deliver it every day. That means fair pay, safer and more supportive workplaces, meaningful inclusion in system changes, and real action to address the mental health toll of the work," Parker said.
The report recommended stronger pay equity enforcement, robust anti-discrimination measures, improved staffing levels, and formal structures for front-line worker input into health-care reform.
However, the office of the Minister of Primary and Preventative Health Services dismissed the report as biased.
“We respect Alberta’s allied health-care professionals and remain committed to working with them through established bargaining and engagement channels. That said, the Parkland Institute continues to present biased reports as fact," the office said, in a statement.
"Their latest report relies on unverified anecdotes, lumps together dozens of unrelated professions, and makes sweeping claims about discrimination and pay gaps without considering fundamentals like job type, shift differentials, or credentials. With no cost analysis, no implementation plan, and no comparison to other provinces, this is ideology — not credible research."
The office said the Alberta Health Workforce Strategy tackles retention, training, and workplace support through initiatives like the Alberta Midwifery Strategy and expanded training opportunities in allied health fields. The Modernizing Alberta's Primary Health Care System (MAPS) initiative directly supports provider wellness, workload management, and workforce capacity.
"We know there is more work to do — and we will continue building a stronger, more responsive health-care system through partnership and action, not through partisan reports.”
Sarah Hoffman, Alberta New Democrat Shadow Minister for Health, said the report confirms that health-care professionals are overworked and undervalued.
"Workers are stressed, and the UCP government’s inability to properly manage the health system is causing chaos and confusion," Hoffman said in a statement.
Friends of Medicare said the report validates the need for urgent action to retain Alberta health-care workers.
“A hospital bed is just a bed without the full team of qualified health care professionals to staff it. But this government’s continued disregard and blatant disrespect for the critical work and dedication of these workers is driving more and more of them out of the province and out of the system altogether, ultimately compromising patient care," said Chris Gallaway, Friends of Medicare executive director, in a statement.
