Edmonton – Trudy Thomson, Vice-President, HSAA reacted to the Alberta Health Services Performance review.
“I was surprised to hear the current health minister admit the report he released today is full of flawed and incomplete information. The minister said this report confirms the conclusions in the MacKinnon report. In other words, both reports are just multi-million-dollar exercises to allow the government to push UCP talking points.
“Now the minister is giving Alberta Health Services (AHS) 100 days to come up with a plan to find ‘efficiencies’ to make health care ‘sustainable.’ Efficiencies means cuts, which comes with the false belief privatization saves money. It doesn’t, but the minister has made it clear on several occasions that he prefers private health care. Our health-care system is already stretched. These plans support only the rich and leave the rest of us behind. If the minister was truly interested in making it more sustainable, he would invest in health care, not cut and privatize it.
“HSAA is also disappointed to see the UCP is using AHS as a political pawn to implement its agenda. It would be refreshing if the current government would take responsibility for the actions it is dictating to AHS, rather than hiding behind the thousands and thousands of professionals who believe the first and only priority in health care is patients.
“Jason Kenney said he would protect health care. He should keep his word.”
The Health Sciences Association of Alberta is nearly 28,000 front-line, expertly-trained, dedicated health-care professionals who put patient care first.
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Media contact:
Kirk Heuser, HSAA Communications Officer
780-690-8199
