News
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Provincial Budget Continues Health Care Privatization Agenda While Ignoring Staffing Crisis
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.
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Legislative Session Must Prioritize Health Care Capital Projects and Workforce Planning
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.
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Outrageous! UCP Says They Will Opt Out of Pharmacare Before Even Seeing Details
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.
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Alberta needs a health care workforce plan, not a hiring freeze
EDMONTON — Earlier today, health care workers raised concerns about a frontline health care hiring freeze. In a statement released this morning, the Health Sciences Association of Alberta (HSAA) informed Albertans that the province is canceling recruitment for critical frontline health care professionals as part of a hiring freeze to manage an operating deficit.
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Change of Course Urgently Needed Amid Record Drug Poisoning Deaths
EDMONTON — Heading into the long weekend, Albertans learned that our province is expected to surpass the annual record for toxic drug poisoning deaths in 2023. New data shows there were 1,692 drug poisoning fatalities between January and October of 2023. These updated numbers mean Alberta is expected to set a new record for fatalities last year.
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Albertans in Ottawa lobbying for Pharmacare and Stronger Public Health Care
Friends of Medicare, along with over a dozen advocates and health care workers from Alberta, are in Ottawa this week to take part in the Canadian Health Coalition’s Health & Hope Lobby on Parliament Hill.
OTTAWA — Participants from across Alberta will be meeting with Members of Parliament from all three of our federal parties, as well as Senators, to push for universal single-payer Pharmacare, safer long-term care, expanded public health care, and to stop privatization through the enforcement of the Canada Health Act. Friends of Medicare is also proud to support the rally for public health care on Parliament Hill tomorrow afternoon.
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Airdrie Urgent Care Centre Should Proceed as Planned, Without Delays or Privatization
Last week, Albertans learned that the long-needed expansion and renovation of the Airdrie Community Health Centre has been paused as the government considers a proposal to add private delivery to the publicly funded facility.
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New Barriers to Gender-Affirming Health Care are Discriminatory and Dangerous
EDMONTON — Yesterday, Premier Danielle Smith announced a widely condemned new policy that includes putting new restrictions on gender-affirming health care. The new policy infringes on the rights of young Albertans and their families to access the health care services they need, when they need them.
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Budget 2024 must prioritize home care funding
Friends of Medicare and our allies in the disability community are calling on the Alberta government to prioritize home care funding in the impending provincial Budget.
EDMONTON — Following Facility-Based Continuing Care (FBCC) review recommendations to shift the delivery of Alberta’s continuing care services to include a greater proportion of care in community, the UCP government has repeatedly made clear their intention to expand the province’s home care system. However, we have yet to see any meaningful investment to support this expansion.
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The Federal Government Needs to Stop Stalling on Pharmacare
EDMONTON — Yesterday, it was announced that the tabling of a National Pharmacare bill in the House of Commons will be delayed into the new year. This extends the timeline that was laid out in the Confidence and Supply Agreement between the NDP and the governing Liberals, which stipulated that legislation should be tabled and passed by the end of 2023.