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.

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.

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.

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.