EDMONTON — Yesterday, the Minister of Health announced yet another restructuring change for Alberta health care, creating another new agency called Cancer Care Alberta and sharing that later this year, cancer care will fall under Acute Care Alberta. No details were provided on how this will improve patient care, reduce our unacceptably long cancer treatment wait times, or address concerns from frontline health care workers.
“The announced changes do nothing to improve wait times for cancer care in Alberta. Instead, the government remains narrowly focused on their destructive plan to blow apart our public health care system, with no evidence that anything they are doing will improve health care access for Albertans,” said Chris Gallaway, executive director of Friends of Medicare. “We urgently need a plan to expand capacity and ensure quality, timely access to cancer care. Unfortunately for Albertans, nothing about that was in the government’s announcement.”
Last October, the Calgary Chapter of Friends of Medicare wrote a letter to the Minister of Health with a series of questions about the government’s plans for the new Arthur J.E. Child Comprehensive Cancer Centre, including what specific equipment will outfit the new centre, and what the workforce plan is for staffing the facility. Those questions have yet to be answered and were left unaddressed in Budget 2025.
“The new facility is seven times the size of the former Tom Baker Cancer Centre. It is an amazing opportunity to improve cancer care for Albertans with a world class facility, but doing so would certainly require more staff to get all of the potential beds operational,” said Gallaway. “Unfortunately, Budget 2025 did not include any plan, timeline or appropriate funding to get the Arthur J.E. Child Comprehensive Cancer Centre fully staffed and operational.”
The government release yesterday also warned that “proposed legislative changes that would support completing the work to refocus the health care system are expected to be tabled this spring,” but offers no explanation of what further legislation is required for the government’s dramatic restructuring project to continue, or what that legislation will empower the government to do. A potentially ominous sign for what’s still to come.
“More legislation, more agencies, more CEOs, more restructuring announcements, more private contracts. None of this is helping with the real issue in public health care – the frontline workforce,” said Gallaway. “We desperately need a workforce plan to retain and recruit the health care professionals we need. Alongside this, we need decisive action to ensure we have the capacity and infrastructure needed to provide services to a growing population. This includes cancer care and a plan to fully open the Arthur J.E. Child Comprehensive Cancer Centre.”
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