CALGARY — This morning in Calgary, Friends of Medicare stood alongside Mike Parker, President of the Health Sciences Association of Alberta (HSAA), in calling on the provincial government to release up-to-date data and broaden its approach to addiction care beyond their one-size-fits-all model. 

EDMONTON — This morning, Premier Danielle Smith and Minister of Mental Health and Addiction Dan Williams announced the next phase of the UCP government’s ideological “Alberta Recovery Model,” with the establishment of two new organizations: Recovery Alberta and the Canadian Centre of Recovery Excellence (CoRE).

EDMONTON — Friends of Medicare, and activists within the disability community are at the legislature today to call on the Alberta government to improve the province’s home care system. Our online petition containing more than 33,000 names of individuals who have signed in support of improved home care funding and services in Alberta will be tabled in the legislature after Question Period

Following recommendations in the Facility-Based Continuing Care (FBCC) review, the UCP government has repeatedly made clear their intention to shift the delivery of Alberta’s continuing care services to include a greater proportion of care in-community. But while disabled Albertans, seniors, families and advocates have long called for an expansion to our home care system, we have seen no meaningful investment to support this shift in care delivery. 

Last month, residents from Leduc, Beaumont, and surrounding communities who are concerned about their public health care, came together to launch a new Friends of Medicare chapter. At their founding meeting in February, members elected an inaugural chapter board, including new Chapter Chair, Cam Heenan.

Civic Services Union 52 has served strike notice to the City of Edmonton and Edmonton Public Library, meaning job action will begin at 11:00 a.m. tomorrow unless action is taken.

CSU 52 members provide crucial public services which contribute to the overall mental and physical well-being of Edmontonians. This includes recreational centres, libraries, dispatchers and so much more. If strike action begins tomorrow, it means residents will lose access to these facilities which are so important to their health.

Last week, the Alberta government sent out a post-budget update on the Red Deer Hospital project, which included their plans for Phase 2 of the project to include: “construction of an ambulatory care building using a public-private partnership (P3) delivery model.” P3s are well known to be more expensive, while harming public services. Previous attempts to use a P3 model to build labs and hospitals in Alberta have repeatedly been fought against and rejected by patients and health care workers.

Initial response to the provincial budget from Friends of Medicare’s executive director Chris Gallaway:

Albertans are increasingly concerned about accessing the health care they need when and where they need it. Today’s budget does little to ease those concerns. Right now, Alberta’s public health care system is in an urgent situation that requires urgent action to deal with the widespread short-staffing, worker burnout, and closures impacting our entire province.

Albertans will be watching for public health care investments in tomorrow's provincial budget.

Health care is expected to dominate the spring session of the Alberta legislature, which begins today. In advance of the start of session, the UCP government has already signaled an austerity budget, and has made concerning decisions around health care capital projects, including pausing the Airdrie Urgent Care Centre and the South Edmonton Hospital. As cover for these broken promises, the Health Minister announced $20 million over three years to go towards a new Stollery Children’s Hospital — an amount of funding that isn’t even enough to build an elementary school — while refusing to give a timeline for when the project would actually be fully funded and built.

EDMONTON -- On Friday, it was announced that the federal NDP and Liberals had reached a deal on Pharmacare that would include single-payer coverage of contraceptives and diabetes medication and equipment, with full details and draft legislation to be revealed this week. Yesterday, Alberta Health Minister Adrianne LaGrange’s office released a statement stating they already intend to opt out of the coming national Pharmacare plan, even before the details have been publicly announced.