April 27, 2021
EDMONTON

Friends of Medicare joins Canada-wide call for national long-term care standards amid COVID-19 deaths

Today Friends of Medicare joins provincial and territorial Health Coalitions from across the country, Canadians 4 LTC, advocates, family members, and seniors for a National Day of Action for Long-Term Care Standards. All across Canada, we will be virtually protesting the failure of our federal and provincial governments to set national standards for long-term care. The scale of suffering and preventable death in Canada’s long-term care homes throughout the pandemic has precipitated a moral obligation for meaningful change. However, our political leaders have failed to lead.

April 23, 2021
EDMONTON

Auditor General’s report sets a clear path to improve wait times via public solutions, not private expansion

The Auditor General’s report, Alberta Health Services Use of Publicly Funded CT & MRI Services, released on April 22nd, shows clearly that AHS has lost control of this important part of our health care system.

The recommendations made by the Auditor General made it clear that AHS and government can, if they choose, utilize unused capacity in public hospital operating rooms and diagnostics, organize access to care more effectively, scale up proven innovations in the public system, and ramp up capacity to improve access to care. Wait list, equity, and timeliness issues were clearly laid out and solutions provided. If unnecessary testing was curtailed, as has been started with MRIs in some provinces, funds could be redirected to needed care elsewhere in our public health care system. Better wait list management, improvements in primary care, and proven innovations in the public system have made a dramatic difference where they have been implemented.