Health care workers caught in the middle of AHS reform

The current Government of Alberta refuses to address actual problems and would seemingly rather spend its budget creating new ones and toying with the health-care system. The flaws within Alberta Health Services (AHS) were not due to the lack of subsections or separate organizations, but rather underfunding. Instead of providing more funding to AHS, the government is splitting it up into four different organizations. In the process, the government will just shuffle health care workers around as it sees fit. I don’t know what else to call this but unequivocally foolish. It will only create chaos for both health-care workers and patients.

The plan proposed by the United Conservative Party (UCP) has divided the health-care system into primary care, acute care, continuing care, and mental health and addiction care. This new structure is supposed to solve the woes currently present in AHS and create better quality services. Of course, this doesn’t address the problem of health-care funding. Surely it would just be easier to fix the proverbial wheel of underfunding rather than reinvent it four times?

Many health care workers are worried about what this will mean for them given the uncertainty of this structural change. The Minister of Health, Adriana LaGrange, has promised there will be no job losses. Well, as long as health-care workers give into the transition. As for those who do not wish to transition, they will presumably have to stay in whatever is left of AHS or file for unemployment. Whether or not health-care workers agree with this plan, many of them will likely choose to go along with it. I don’t know how this stressful and unnecessary change will result in favourable and productive working conditions, but I digress.

As a province, we are already suffering from a severe lack of doctors, nurses and other health-care professionals. We continuously see health-care professionals opt to move to other provinces where the government will take their practice more seriously. These structural changes will only exacerbate this issue as the new system funnels current employees into needless subsections. The changes will also likely leave prospective employees wondering what this all means for their careers. This can leave University of Alberta students studying medicine in anxiety-ridden limbo.

Does this just complicate AHS more than help it? Short answer: yes. The long answer is that siloing the health-care system into separate entities will inevitably lead to a breakdown of communication. Likely, this will create further unnecessary levels of bureaucracy and more opportunities for Albertans to fall through the cracks.

Though the government is making these impending structural changes in the name of improving the system, some health-care professionals worry that it will make it harder for both patients and providers to navigate. For instance, with the way the government is dividing the system, one patient could go through all four categories for one issue. This incessant transferring of both patients and providers is a waste of money, time, and resources. It would also lack the very necessary element of continuity of care. 

Most Albertans never asked for restructuring or a systematic upheaval at the expense of health-care workers. We asked for shorter wait times, more beds, and better funding. It is as if all of the needs of Albertans fall on deaf ears when it comes to the UCP. But, I’ll say it again: we want better funding, not the division of care.