EDMONTON — Alberta’s health minister lashed back Monday as opposition critics presented letters showing doctors have warned the government for years of severe overcrowding in emergency wards.
“(The system) doesn’t fix itself overnight as we all know, but fixes are in the works. A lot of it has already occurred and more of it is coming,” Gene Zwozdesky told the legislature on the first day of the fall session.
The minister was responding to the leak last week of a recent letter to the government from the head of emergency services for the Alberta Medical Association.
In the letter, Dr. Paul Parks warned that the system was on the verge of “potential catastrophic collapse” due to long backlogs of patients.
Parks cited examples of suffering: stroke patients having to wait for hours, patients with chest pains giving up on being seen and going home, and one heart attack patient dying while awaiting care.
Opposition parties tabled a February 2008 letter from Paul’s predecessor to Premier Ed Stelmach, warning then of severe overcrowding. Stelmach wrote back acknowledging the crisis and promising changes would be made.
Opposition NDP Leader Brian Mason labelled that promise hollow.
“Two and half years have passed and people have continued to suffer and even die in emergency rooms, yet this premier has done nothing,” Brian Mason said during question period.
“Will the premier admit the obvious: he has failed utterly to protect Albertans when they need help the most.”
Stelmach said they’ve made many improvements.
Opponents say the province is to blame by cutting long-term care beds, which has led to a backup of patients stuck in acute-care hospital beds, which in turn has caused the crisis in the emergency wards.
The opposition almost succeeded Monday in a bid to hold an emergency debate on the issue, even though Zwozdesky told the house that nothing will change because of it.
He pointed out that action is ongoing. He promised last week to add 250 more beds across the board by the end of the year, recently toured 23 emergency rooms to hear about problems first-hand, and was to meet Tuesday with Dr. Parks to further explore his concerns.
The opposition actually persuaded Speaker Ken Kowalski that the issue met the criteria for an emergency debate.
But the motion to hold the debate — which could have passed if all 15 opposition members voted for it — failed by two votes when Alberta Liberal Leader David Swann and member Bridget Pastoor failed to return to the house in time to be counted. All Tory members in the house voted against the debate.
Swann said he was in a meeting and raced back, but failed to get there in time.
“I’m disappointed because I certainly wanted a quorum to push this thing, clearly indicating the importance of this to us,” Swann said afterward.
He said he will seek to find out from Pastoor why she missed the vote.
Guy Smith, president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, says while the crisis continues in emergency wards, the province continues to cut long-term care beds at places in Red Deer.
He said union members who work in the emergency wards — licensed practical nurses, health-care aides and support staff — are seeing the suffering.
“It’s a disaster. There are certain areas worse than others,” said Smith. “They see it on the front-lines every single day.
“The (bed) cuts of the 90s are now beginning to show up very nastily in emergency wards.”