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 — 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 — Earlier this week, the United Nurses of Alberta received deeply concerning letters from their employers warning about the potential for position reductions and contracting out in 2024. These letters were sent in the lead up as provincial bargaining is set to begin with nurses, and is similar to a tactic used in 2019 before that round of bargaining.

Friends of Medicare stands in solidarity with laboratory workers in their fight for fairness

This morning, Alberta’s medical laboratory workers called on DynaLIFE to return to the bargaining table, and to commit to fairness. Lab workers provide incredibly important services to Albertans, essential for timely diagnostics and treatment. Yet once again, just like when DynaLIFE tried to take away their pension plan, this private company’s profits are being prioritized at the expense of working conditions, public oversight, and patient care. All while Alberta is facing a chronic short-staffing crisis throughout our health care system.

EDMONTON — Earlier today the Governments of Canada and Alberta announced an agreement in principle for increased federal health funding. The agreement states some good shared goals, but it is concerning that there are no strings or accountability measures attached to this new federal money.

“There is no doubt that our provincial public health care system is in need of more support right now, but new federal dollars must come with accountability measures and strings attached to ensure that it goes where patients need it,” said Chris Gallaway, executive director of Friends of Medicare. “Our Premier should not be handed a blank cheque to be used to accelerate their plans for further privatization. Unfortunately, that’s what we saw with today’s agreement in principle.”

OTTAWA – As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet gather in Hamilton for a three-day retreat, a broad coalition of unions and progressive groups says that implementing a comprehensive pharmacare program must be a top priority for the Liberal government. The cost-of-living crisis has significantly increased cost-related obstacles to Canadians’ access to prescription drugs, while high drug prices are draining billions of dollars from hospitals’ budgets.

Expanding the use of for-profit surgical centres in Calgary is making health care short staffing worse while failing to solve the surgical backlog

EDMONTON — This morning, Minister of Health Jason Copping announced an expanded use of private, for-profit surgical centres in Calgary. Friends of Medicare and others have already spoken out at length about the problems with the government’s Alberta Surgical Initiative and their unfounded claims that privatization will improve surgical wait times.  

October 24, 2022 

Members of Alberta’s major health-care unions are joining together to demand that the government of Alberta develop a plan to deal with the crisis in health care. 

EDMONTON – Following the swearing-in of Premier Smith’s cabinet Alberta’s health-care unions are coming together to advocate that the government take steps to fully address the staffing crisis in health  care.  

Leaders of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE), the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the Health Sciences Association of Alberta (HSAA) and the United Nurses of Alberta (UNA)  along with Friends of Medicare (FOM) are urging the newly announced cabinet to deliver a  comprehensive plan to fix the health-care system which has been thrown into chaos by short-staffing.

This guest column appeared in the Medicine Hat News on October 13.

This Op-Ed by FOM's Executive Director, Chris Gallaway, originally appeared in the Edmonton Journal on August 20, 2022.

Recent announcements of an urgent-care hours reduction in Airdrie, the temporary emergency department closure in Hardisty, and the obstetrics closure in Fort Saskatchewan are just the latest examples of the bed and unit closures which are rampant throughout our health-care system this summer.