FORT MCMURRAY — Residents from Fort McMurray and the Wood Buffalo region have come together to launch a new Friends of Medicare chapter, to advocate for the protection and expansion of public health care in north-east Alberta and beyond.
“Public health care is a top concern for our community, and our new chapter is ready to get to work on the issues that people here are facing,” says Alanna King, the founding Chair of the Fort McMurray Wood Buffalo Chapter. “We are a community of growing families, and it’s increasingly important that we join together to send a strong message that the people here want to see our public health care protected and strengthened, not cut or privatized.”
“This expansion of Friends of Medicare's collective work reflects the growing frustrations over health care among Albertans,” said Chris Gallaway, executive director of Friends of Medicare. “We’ve been all over the province in the past few years, and everywhere we go we hear the same concerns: people can’t access the health care services they need.”
The Fort McMurray Wood Buffalo Chapter is the latest group of advocates to launch a Friends of Medicare chapter in their community, joining Calgary, Red Deer (Central Alberta), Palliser (Medicine Hat), Lethbridge, and Leduc-Beaumont.
“Many of the people volunteering their time and experience to our chapter are health care workers or patients ourselves, so we’re seeing first-hand how issues like chronic short-staffing, privatization, and the constant restructuring of the health care system are contributing to the quality and availability of our public health care locally,” says King.
“Our regional chapters do invaluable work in addressing the issues impacting health care at the grassroots level,” says Gallaway. “In every corner of this province, we’re seeing people coming together to take action to defend the public health care they depend on. Between this government’s aggressive privatization agenda and the chaos being caused by the ongoing dismantling of our public health care system, there has never been a more crucial time for local chapters like this to take form and take action.”
Friends of Medicare’s Fort McMurray Wood Buffalo Chapter encourages people in the region to get involved in their fight to protect and strengthen public health care in your community. You can visit them at their table at the Labour Day Barbeque at Lions Park on September 1st, at Overdose Awareness Day at Kiyām Community Park on August 31, or by reaching out on our website.
Albertans elsewhere are encouraged to join Friends of Medicare and join an existing chapter in their community.
Friends of Medicare is a non-profit, non-partisan coalition advocating to defend, strengthen, and expand public health care in Alberta.
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