The Albert government has delivered on its promise to add 50 new hospital beds across the province.
Premier Jason Kenney and Health Minister Jason Copping made the announcement at Mount Royal University’s nursing simulation lab on Thursday morning.
“We all know the past two and a half years put unprecedented strain on our public health care system. The public health crisis unmasked a serious lack of capacity in not just Alberta but the entire Canadian health care system,” Kenney said.
“It’s ‘ICU if necessary,’ not necessarily ICU,” Copping said. “When the beds are not in use, the nurses and other staff assigned to them will support other areas of the hospital.
“The pandemic has shown that we need more permanent capacity and we need more staff, and we need to be flexible with those resources.”
The province made the initial addition announcement in March. In May, 19 of the 50 had opened. And on Thursday, seven months later, the full 50 were announced to have opened in 12 different hospitals.
AHS is also working with a recruitment agency to bring in international medical graduates. It has also implemented a guaranteed income for anesthesiologists, reworked the OR schedule to help reduce night-time on-call levels, and provided signing bonuses, reimbursement for relocation, and paid site tours.
On Thursday, the opposition NDP called the outgoing UCP premier’s healthcare legacy a failure. “Jason Kenney accepts no responsibility for the profound crisis he leaves behind in Alberta’s health care system,” said David Shepherd, NDP Health Critic.
“There are dozens of hospitals that are partially and fully closed across the province due to staff shortages,” he added.
