March 23, 2009

Stelmach Administration Wastes Millions on Restructuring While Calgarians Languish in ERs: Swann

Calgary – While the Stelmach administration has spent nearly $100 million to restructure how health care is delivered, Calgarians are still waiting for hours in emergency rooms thanks to chronic overcrowding and a shortage of doctors, nurses, and beds.

“Premier Stelmach is pouring tens of millions of dollars into restructuring the health system, but they’ve never presented any evidence that this will improve health care for the average Albertan. Emergency rooms are still as crowded as ever instead of increasing the size of the health workforce and creating new beds, they’re tinkering with administrative issues, and spending a pretty penny to do it.”

For example, the Alberta Health Service Board recently laid off Paddy Meade, an AHSB executive and former Deputy Minister of Health. Albertans will have to pay her up to $1.2 million in severance.

“First Albertans were forced to pay $80 million for transition costs, then almost $6 million for CEO severances and we still have not seen any of the improvements that this single board was supposed to provide,” Swann continues.

At a time where people are demanding corporate and public sector fiscal responsibility, the Stelmach government is behaving like a lottery winner on a wild spending spree.

“How long will Albertans have to wait to see any improvement in the health care they receive?  The bill keeps getting bigger, and the situation keeps getting worse,” says Swann.

“It is obvious that when the government began the transition in health, they were hoping oil would stay at $140/barrel. At that price they would have had an easier time selling an expensive transition to Albertans.”