Normally I just post about new technology and new trends but I need to bring to light the absolute idiocity of what the Alberta Conservative Government is doing to the Alberta Health Care system. So here is the back story. In March 2008 there was a General Election in Alberta. Ed Stelmach and the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party won an overwhelming majority (Please note that this was the lowest voter turnout in Alberta History Wikipedia Reference). So with a "blank cheque" and a "free pass" from the Alberta Tax Payer the Conservatives can do pretty much what ever they want.
So in January 2009 the Alberta Government hired an Australian economist to be the head of Alberta Health Services (now is it just me or how is an economist know anything about health care besides counting pennies?). Read CBC Article On Duckett Hiring
In May 2009 the new Health Minister Ron Liepert and his party decided to merge the regional boards into one big super board (Read Ref Link). This lead to the layoffs of many managers that got paid a huge severance for being laid off (CBC Article September 2009).
Here is an interesting note the allot of the deficit came from the Government changes to the health care system (please refer to the CBC Article September 2009).
So now we are looking into the abyss if you will. The complete and total destruction of the Public Health Care system by strangling it to death. Here is how it starts. Duckett implements a new code of conduct that puts a "gag order" on all Alberta Health Services employees. This is allowed to go though because of no public pressure or political will. (Read Calgary Herald Article)then closes 300 acute care beds (which we are already short on) at Alberta Health Services passing on the cost to municipal governments and law enforcement budgets since there is no place to take or help these people.
Police Worry About Alberta Hospital Closure 2009
He argues that here will be places in community based or assisted living programs. These programs are not equipped to handle these people with very specific needs.
(CTV Article).
"First of all if they could be in assisted living they would already be there this is going to be a repeat of history because Albertans can't learn from history. We went through this in the 90's and here we go again."
Now he is talking about crippling the back bone to the Health Care System, removing nurses (Which we are short on) saying that their job can be done by someone else who we don't have to pay as much. First of all they tried this already, and I won't get into specifics but we are back to removing highly trained and educated staff that we need to keep the health care system running. This is not a good idea!
CBC Nurses Complaint Letter 2009
Duckett Issues with Nurses in the Past
This is the problem when you don't have someone who is familiar with the training and backgrounds of personnel in the given profession. It doesn't matter what profession but if you don't understand or know about how something works then you are useless and more then likely will cause more harm then good. The oath of most medical professionals is to do no harm. Since Stephen Duckett and our Alberta conservative government didn't take that oath then I guess they can do all the harm they want that is until the next election... I hope...
Trevor
