Alberta
Serious Incident Response Team investigating death in Medicine Hat
News release from ASIRT (Alberta Serious Incident Response Team)
Investigation continues into Medicine Hat death
On Aug. 6, the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) was directed to investigate a man’s death following an encounter with police in Medicine Hat.
At approximately 2:02 p.m., Medicine Hat Police Service (MHPS) received a 911 call about a man screaming and swinging a machete. Police officers responded to an apartment at 144 2 Ave. SE, where they spoke with a 44-year-old man and told him that he was under arrest for possession of weapons for a dangerous purpose.
The man ignored directions from police and barricaded himself inside a residence. The MHPS tactical team arrived and spoke with the man, who exited the residence holding a machete and knife and advanced towards police officers. The tactical team deployed non-lethal rounds at the man and restrained him. Police found two weapons at the scene.
At 8:03 p.m., the man was transported to hospital and turned over to the care of hospital staff. At approximately 8:56 p.m., the man stopped breathing. Emergency medical measures were unsuccessful, and the man died.
ASIRT’s investigation will examine the use of force by the officers. No additional information will be released.
As part of its ongoing investigation, ASIRT is continuing efforts to identify people who may have witnessed aspects of the confrontation between the man and police. ASIRT is asking anyone who may have been in the area and may have witnessed these events and/or may have video to contact investigators at 403-592-4306.
ASIRT’s mandate is to effectively, independently and objectively investigate incidents involving Alberta’s police that have resulted in serious injury or death to any person, as well as serious or sensitive allegations of police misconduct.
Alberta
Pharmacist-led clinics improve access to health care: Lessons from Alberta
News release from the Montreal Economic Institute
In Canada, 35 per cent of avoidable emergency room visits could be handled by pharmacists.
Emulating Alberta’s pharmacist-led clinic model could enhance access to primary care and help avoid unnecessary emergency room visits, according to a new study from the Montreal Economic Institute.
“Pharmacists know medication better than anyone else in our health systems,” explains Krystle Wittevrongel, senior public policy analyst and Alberta project lead at the MEI. “By unlocking their full potential in prescribing and substituting medications, Alberta’s pharmacist-led clinics have helped avoid tens of thousands of unnecessary emergency room visits.”
Pharmacists in Alberta have the largest prescribing authority in the country, including the ability to prescribe schedule one drugs with special training.
Unlike in Ontario and Manitoba, Alberta pharmacists are authorized to substitute prescribed medications, which can help address issues such as adverse reactions caused by interaction with other treatments.
The study explains that this can help reduce pressure on hospitals, as prescription-related issues account for more than 10 per cent of emergency room visits.
Alberta’s first pharmacist-led clinic, in Lethbridge, sees between 14,600 and 21,900 patients per year since opening in 2022.
It is expected that there will be 103 such clinics active in the province by the end of 2024.
The researcher also links the success of the pharmacist-led clinic model in Alberta to pharmacists’ expanded scope of practice in the province.
Among other things, Alberta pharmacists are able to order and interpret lab tests, unlike their counterparts in British Columbia, Ontario, and Newfoundland and Labrador.
A 2019 peer-reviewed study found that pharmacists could handle 35 per cent of avoidable emergency room visits in Canada.
“By enabling pharmacists to play a larger role in its health system, Alberta is redirecting minor cases from emergency rooms to more appropriate facilities,” said Wittevrongel. “Just imagine how much faster things could be if pharmacists could take care of 35 per cent of the unnecessary load placed on Canada’s emergency rooms.”
The MEI study is available here.
* * *
The MEI is an independent public policy think tank with offices in Montreal and Calgary. Through its publications, media appearances, and advisory services to policy-makers, the MEI stimulates public policy debate and reforms based on sound economics and entrepreneurship.
Alberta
Fortis et Liber: Alberta’s Future in the Canadian Federation
From the C2C Journal
By Barry Cooper, professor of political science, University of Calgary
Canada’s western lands, wrote one prominent academic, became provinces “in the Roman sense” – acquired possessions that, once vanquished, were there to be exploited. Laurentian Canada regarded the hinterlands as existing primarily to serve the interests of the heartland. And the current holders of office in Ottawa often behave as if the Constitution’s federal-provincial distribution of powers is at best advisory, if it needs to be acknowledged at all. Reviewing this history, Barry Cooper places Alberta’s widely criticized Sovereignty Act in the context of the Prairie provinces’ long struggle for due constitutional recognition and the political equality of their citizens. Canada is a federation, notes Cooper. Provinces do have rights. Constitutions do mean something. And when they are no longer working, they can be changed.
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