Monday, November 22, 2010

Alberta Health Care Comment

A common sense approach to health care has been abandoned in Alberta and Canada.
It is more than just decreasing wait times in the ER and for surgeries. It is an easy political voice clip to say
"We are doing everything we can to reduce wait times."

To lay the blame on the state of our Alberta health care completely on the government is also missing important pieces of the medical puzzle: doctors, nurses, unions, the public, and yes - even the media - need involvement. Staff need the ability to recommend and make changes to the system and whistle-blow without punishment.

We need to triage the system and change the triage process for ER. What is the minimum ER coverage per 100,000 that is required? What is the rate currently? How does it compare to other jurisdictions? I have even not heard of any statistics comparing locales in Alberta, let alone Canadian or international comparisons.

We need real study, real solutions, and real health care coverage.

Common sense approaches and procedures need implementation like if a patient is showing symptoms of appendicitis, do not make him wait in the ER for 8+ hours, then take his blood to send away for testing, wait another 2+ hours sitting in an examination room, then to be told it is not appendicitis, go home. Gee that happened to me!

Where's Capt. Hawkeye, Dr. House, and Nurse Abby when you need them?

UPDATE:
Days after saying his critical 'input' was important -- the tories dump MLA Raj Sherman. He's been suspended from caucus.
From QP today: Why won't the Premier allow his MLAs to stand up for Albertans?