Initial Budget Response from Chris Gallaway, Executive Director of Friends of Medicare:
EDMONTON — “As we travel the province, Albertans continue to tell us they are increasingly worried about accessing the health care they need, when they need it. Heading into Budget 2026, we were watching for key investments in public health care, including prioritizing action on health care capacity and workforce planning for a growing province, and addressing a health care system in crisis.
“Unfortunately, that’s not what we saw in today’s budget. Instead, Budget 2026 continues to roll out the government’s expensive and chaotic restructuring of public health care in Alberta, while doubling-down on their failing privatization schemes and pushing forward with plans for two tier health care in Alberta. Once again, this government has completely failed to deliver on their promise of improved access to health care for Albertans.
“Alberta is in a health care workforce crisis. Doctors, nurses, allied health professionals and other skilled health care workers are all telling us they are burnt out, constantly working short-staffed, and looking to leave the health care system altogether. A two tier health care system will only make this worse, given that we don’t have the skilled workforce to staff two health care systems: one for the rich, and one for everyone else.
"This is an urgent situation, and we have long called on our government to be laser-focused on the frontline workforce in the public health care system with a plan for retention, recruitment and training. We didn’t see that in today’s budget. It doesn’t matter how many doctors they promise to fund if they don’t stick around, or they’re not where patients need them, like in our ERs where people are dying while waiting to be seen, or in the dozens of community facilities facing repeated temporary closures.
“As our population has continued to boom, we have fallen further and further behind in hospital bed capacity in Alberta. Yet, Budget 2026’s capital budget will do little to address a growing population’s need for hospital and health care services.
"Had this Premier not canceled it, the South Edmonton Hospital project could have opened this year, adding much needed capacity to the Edmonton region. Instead, we are now short by over a thousand beds in Edmonton, and thousands more across the province. Today’s budget lacked concrete plans or timelines for building, opening, and staffing the needed new facilities.
“Instead, the government is continuing to use our public health care dollars to fund the expansion of private addictions treatment centres, and to accelerate the use of private, for-profit surgical centres and other contracts with for-profit providers – at the expense of our public services. Ultimately, our public health care dollars should be going towards providing quality, timely care, not proliferating corporate profits.”
More budget analysis to come from Friends of Medicare in the days ahead.
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