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Alberta

Wait times down. Better EMS response times. Province releases results of 90 day Health Care Action Plan

Published

2 years ago

10 minute read

90-day HCAP update: Health care wait times dropping

Albertans are spending less time waiting for the medical care they need since the Health Care Action Plan (HCAP) was launched.

Alberta has the best front-line health care workers in the world, and Alberta’s government will work to have the right supports in place to ensure Albertans get the care they need when and where they need it. When Alberta’s HCAP was launched on Nov. 17, Alberta’s government identified four different areas on which it would work with Alberta Health Services to improve. After 90 days, Albertans are seeing improvements in all four areas.

“We are delivering on our promise to reduce wait times, add more front-line staff and keep Albertans updated on the progress we’re making. There is no one silver bullet to fixing our health care system, and change will take time. But positive change is happening, and Albertans are receiving better access to the level of care they need when and where they need it. We appointed Dr. John Cowell as official administrator to speed up improvements and make sure Albertans are getting high quality of care sooner and we are seeing some good, early results.”

Danielle Smith, Premier

Improving EMS response time

In an emergency, every minute counts and over the past three months, ambulances have been responding faster to emergency calls. Improved ambulance times means that Albertans are receiving the urgent care they need from highly skilled paramedics more quickly.

From November to the end of January, EMS response times for most urgent calls improved across the province in metro, urban, rural and remote areas. The decrease in EMS wait times across the province can be broken down to:

  • 17 minutes in metro and urban areas, down from 21.8 minutes
  • 19.2 minutes in communities with more than 3,000 residents, down from 21.5 minutes
  • 34.9 minutes in rural communities with fewer than 3,000 residents, down from 36 minutes
  • 57.5 minutes in remote communities, down from 63.9 minutes

In addition to improved EMS wait times, more ambulances have been available, meaning that red alerts, which indicate a lack of ambulance availability at a point in time, were substantially reduced in Edmonton and Calgary:

  • Edmonton has seen a 92 per cent reduction in the number of alerts issued in January 2023 compared with January 2022.
  • Calgary has seen a 60 per cent reduction over the same period.

The initiative to triage 911 calls to the most appropriate level of care has also played a role in ensuring paramedics are able to answer the most urgent calls. Since the program was launched in January, 1,600 callers with non-urgent conditions were transferred from 911 to Health Link registered nurses. Alberta’s government is pleased to see progress on its aim to reduce EMS wait times and will continue working to further decrease the amount of time an Albertan waits for an ambulance to arrive.

“The good news is wait times are trending in the right direction and Albertans are getting the care they need more quickly. More doctors, nurses and paramedics are available to help Albertans, and more help is on the way as Alberta continues to add front-line workers for ambulances, ERs and across the system.”

Jason Copping, Minister of Health

Reducing surgery wait times

Alberta’s government continues its work to reduce surgical wait times for Albertans. Part of a strong health care system is ensuring that Alberta patients are receiving their surgeries within clinically recommended times. Since November 2022, the number of patients waiting longer than the clinically recommended time has decreased by 9.4 per cent.

Alberta’s chartered surgical facilities are helping to reduce wait times and ensure Albertans are receiving the surgeries they need to improve their health and their quality of life. Nearly 7,000 more publicly funded surgeries were completed at chartered surgical facilities in January compared with November, a number that includes orthopedic and eye surgeries. As this work continues, AHS is focused on ensuring that those patients who have waited the longest for surgery are prioritized.

“I would like to thank our incredible front-line workers as well as our AHS leaders, who have worked extremely hard to identify and implement improvements to our health care system, with focus on our priority areas. We have emerged from an extremely challenging time, and I am optimistic that we will continue to see improvements that will benefit all Albertans whenever they need our care and support.”

Dr. John Cowell, official administrator, Alberta Health Services

Decreasing emergency room wait times and improving access to care

Alberta’s government is also encouraged to see that in January, more Albertans received care sooner when they visited emergency departments. Progress in lowering emergency department wait times has been seen in the two measures:

  • Wait time to see a doctor in an emergency department decreased by almost 10 per cent provincially since November.
  • Time spent in an emergency department for admitted patients has been reduced by about five per cent.

There is still work to be done to ensure Albertans have lower wait times in emergency rooms across the province, and Alberta’s government will continue to make policy and funding decisions to see those improvements. In January, the number of assessed patients waiting in the province’s top 14 hospitals for a continuing care space was 179, lower than the 218 patients in the 2018-2019 fiscal year, and also lower than the 253 patients waiting in November 2022. A number of changes have helped to spur progress on emergency department wait times from November to the end of January:

  • AHS opened 255 new acute care beds (non-intensive care unit) across the province.
  • More beds in continuing care facilities have been opened – freeing more hospital beds for urgent care: 55 new long-term care beds, 292 new designated supportive living beds and 38 new community addiction and mental health beds.
  • Additionally, 36 new transition beds for people discharged from ERs in Edmonton who are experiencing homelessness will be opened this year.

Empowering health care workers to deliver health care

Alberta continues to hire more health care workers to support key areas. AHS is adding 420 more positions in emergency rooms, acute care, EMS and community care, on top of the nearly 400 front-line and support staff hired since November. If passed, Budget 2023 would provide $158 million for a new Health Workforce Strategy to make sure the province has the medical professionals needed and to improve the work environment.

Alberta is making good progress on increasing the number of highly skilled doctors, nurses, paramedics, nurse practitioners and other health allied professionals in the province:

  • AHS added 800 registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and health care aides in 2022.
  • Since 2019, AHS has added 5,800 front-line staff, including 1,800 registered nurses and 300 paramedics.
  • AHS recruited 28 physicians to rural Alberta and added 278 more registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and health care aides since November.
  • EMS added 39 front-line staff, including paramedics and emergency communications officers, over the last three months.
  • 80 additional full-time paramedic positions are being recruited, and AHS is transitioning 70 current temporary full-time EMS positions to regular full-time.
  • AHS is currently hiring 114 full-time nursing staff for emergency department teams to speed up EMS transfers and free up paramedics to respond to more calls.
Related Topics:

This is a news release from the Government of Alberta.

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Preston Manning: Canada is in a unity crisis

Published on April 30, 2025

By

Preston Manning's avatar Preston Manning

A Canada West Assembly would investigate why

The election of a minority Liberal government on Monday, and the strong showing of the Conservative party under Pierre Poilievre, cannot mask the fact that Canada remains seriously fractured on many fronts. Thus, one of the primary tasks of the Carney government will be to unite us for the sake of our own national well-being — not simply for the sake of presenting a strong front in future dealings with the United States.

But how is that to be done? When parliament meets as scheduled on May 26, will the government’s throne speech acknowledge the main sources of national disunity and propose the immediate adoption of remedial measures? Or will it ignore the problem entirely, which will serve to further alienate Quebec and the West from Ottawa and the rest of Canada, and weaken Canada’s bargaining position vis a vis the United States?

The principal tactic employed by the Liberal party to unite Canadians behind it in the recent election was to employ the politics of fear — fear of U.S. President Donald Trump trying to “break us so that America can own us,” as Liberal Leader Mark Carney has repeatedly said.

But if the only way to unite Canadians is through the promotion of anti-Americanism fostered by fear of some alleged American takeover — if reaction to the erratic musings of an American president is the only way to motivate more Canadians to vote in a federal election — then not only national unity, but Canadian democracy itself, is in critical condition.

We need to pinpoint what actually is fracturing the country, because if we can clearly define that, we can begin the process of removing those divisive elements to the largest extent possible. Carney and the Liberals will of course declare that it is separatist agitations in Quebec and now the West that is dividing us, but these are simply symptoms of the problem, not the cause.

Here, then, is a partial list of what underpins the division and disunity in this country and, more importantly, of some positive, achievable actions we can take to reduce or eliminate them.

First and foremost is the failure to recognize and accommodate the regional character of this country. Canada is the second-largest country by area on the planet and is characterized by huge geographic regions — the Atlantic, Central Canada, the Prairies, the Pacific Coast and the Northern territories.

Each of these regions — not just Quebec — has its own “distinctive” concerns and aspirations, which must be officially recognized and addressed by the federal government if the country is to be truly united. The previous Liberal government consistently failed to do this, particularly with respect to the Prairies, Pacific and Northern regions, which is the root of much of the alienation that even stimulates talk of western separation.

Second is Ottawa’s failure to recognize and treat the natural resources sector as a fundamental building block of our national economy — not as a relic from the past or an environmental liability, as it was regarded by the government of former prime minister Justin Trudeau.

Will the throne speech announce another 180-degree turn for the Liberal government: the explicit recognition that the great engine of the Canadian economy and our economic recovery is not the federal government, as Carney has implied, but Canada’s agricultural, energy, mining, forestry and fishery sectors, with all the processing, servicing, manufacturing and knowledge sectors that are built upon them?

A third issue we’ve been plagued with is the division of Canadian society based on race, gender, sexual preferences and other identity traits, rather than focusing on the things that unite us as a nation, such as the equality of all under the law. Many private-sector entities are beginning to see the folly of pursuing identity initiatives such as diversity, equity and inclusion that divide rather than unite, but will the Liberal government follow suit and will that intention be made crystal clear in the upcoming throne speech?

A final issue is the federal government’s intrusion into areas of provincial jurisdiction — such as natural resources, health, municipal governance, along with property and civil rights — which is the principal cause of tension and conflict between the federal and provincial governments.

The solution is to pass a federal “act respecting provincial jurisdiction” to repeal or amend the statutes that authorize federal intrusions, so as to eliminate, or at least reduce, their intrusiveness. Coincidentally, this would be a legislative measure that both the Conservatives and the Bloc could unite behind if such a statute were to be one of the first pieces of legislation introduced by the Carney government.

Polling is currently being done to ascertain whether the election of yet another Liberal government has increased the growing estrangement of western Canada from Ottawa and the rest of Canada, notwithstanding Carney’s assurances that his minority government will change its policies on climate change, pipelines, immigration, deficit spending and other distinguishing characteristics of the discredited Trudeau government.

The first test of the truthfulness of those assurances will come via the speech from the throne and the follow-up actions of the federal government.

Meanwhile, consultations are being held on the merits and means of organizing a “Canada West Assembly” to provide a democratic forum for the presentation, analysis and debate of the options facing western Canada (not just Alberta) — from acceptance of a fairer and stronger position within the federation based on guarantees from the federal government, to various independence-oriented proposals, with votes to be taken on the various options and recommendations to be made to the affected provincial governments.

Only time will tell whether the newly elected Carney government chooses to address the root causes of national disunity. But whether it does so or not will influence the direction in which the western provinces and the proposed Canada West Assembly will point.

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Alberta

Premier Danielle Smith hints Alberta may begin ‘path’ toward greater autonomy after Mark Carney’s win

Published on April 30, 2025

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Alberta’s premier said her government will be holding a special caucus meeting on Friday to discuss Alberta’s independence.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith hinted her province could soon consider taking serious steps toward greater autonomy from Canada in light of Mark Carney and the Liberal Party winning yesterday’s federal election.

In a statement posted to her social media channels today, Smith, who is head of Alberta’s governing United Conservative Party, warned that “In the weeks and months ahead, Albertans will have an opportunity to discuss our province’s future, assess various options for strengthening and protecting our province against future hostile acts from Ottawa, and to ultimately choose a path forward.”

“As Premier, I will facilitate and lead this discussion and process with the sincere hope of securing a prosperous future for our province within a united Canada that respects our province’s constitutional rights, facilitates rather than blocks the development and export of our abundant resources, and treats us as a valued and respected partner within confederation,” she noted.

While Smith stopped short of saying that Alberta would consider triggering a referendum on independence from Canada, she did say her government will be holding a “special caucus meeting this Friday to discuss this matter further.”

“I will have more to say after that meeting is concluded,” she noted.

Smith’s warning comes at the same time some pre-election polls have shown Alberta’s independence from Canada sentiment at just over 30 percent.

Monday’s election saw Liberal leader Mark Carney beat out Conservative rival Pierre Poilievre, who also lost his seat. The Conservatives managed to pick up over 20 new seats, however, and Poilievre has vowed to stay on as party leader, for now.

In Alberta, almost all of the seats save two at press time went to conservatives.

Carney, like former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau before him, said he is opposed to new pipeline projects that would allow Alberta oil and gas to be unleashed. Also, his green agenda, like Trudeau’s, is at odds with Alberta’s main economic driver, its oil and gas industry.

The Carney government has also pledged to mandate that all new cars and trucks by 2035 be electric, effectively banning the sale of new gasoline- or diesel-only powered vehicles after that year.

The reduction and eventual elimination of the use of so-called “fossil fuels” and a transition to unreliable “green” energy has also been pushed by the World Economic Forum (WEF) – the globalist group behind the socialist “Great Reset” agenda – an organization in which Trudeau and some of his cabinet are involved.

Smith: ‘I will not permit the status quo to continue’

In her statement, Smith noted that she invited Carney to “immediately commence working with our government to reset the relationship between Ottawa and Alberta with meaningful action rather than hollow rhetoric.”

She noted that a large majority of Albertans are “deeply frustrated that the same government that overtly attacked our provincial economy almost unabated for the past 10 years has been returned to government.”

Smith then promised that she would “not permit the status quo to continue.”

“Albertans are proud Canadians that want this nation to be strong, prosperous, and united, but we will no longer tolerate having our industries threatened and our resources landlocked by Ottawa,” she said.

Smith praised Poilievre for empowering “Albertans and our energy sector as a cornerstone of his campaign.”

Smith was against forced COVID jabs, and her United Conservative government has in recent months banned men from competing in women’s sports and passed a bill banning so-called “top and bottom” surgeries for minors as well as other extreme forms of transgender ideology.

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