RAJESH ANGRAL

RAJESH

ANGRAL

Month: February 2023

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Alberta NDP launches significant plan to connect 1 million residents with family doctor

The Alberta NDP has put forth a plan they say would connect one million Albertans to a family doctor.

Announced Wednesday by party leader Rachel Notley, the plan is said to be a critical step in ending the “chaos in hospitals and ambulances caused by the UCP.”

“Our vision for primary care is called Family Health Teams (FHT),” Notley said. “Our goal is for one million more Albertans to be able to see their family doctor and a Family Health Team within a day or two, close to home.”

A Family Health Team, the party describes, could include multiple family doctors, as well as nurse practitioners, registered and licensed practical nurses, mental health therapists, pharmacists, social workers, dietitians, community paramedics, community health navigators, physiotherapists, midwives, speech language therapists, and others.

The NDP says access would be immediate.

At the reveal today, Dr. Alana Luft and Dr. Tomi Mitchell, both of Calgary, joined Notley.

“I am glad that Rachel Notley and the Alberta NDP have set out a vision to transform primary care where family doctors and other team members can provide better support to patients for early treatment and preventative care,” said Dr. Luft. “If patients have access to accurate information, timely screening, regular check-ins with a provider who knows them, then we have a better chance of keeping people healthy and addressing issues early.”

Added Dr. Mitchell: “As a team, we can provide comprehensive, community based, holistic care that promotes the prevention of disease and the optimization of health outcomes. The path forward is actually quite simple: Proactively support the science-based research that patients do best under a team-based healthcare system. And invest now, in the public health system, and the long term positive impacts will be felt for generations.”

The NDP plan calls for a transition fund to immediately begin hiring 1,500 non-physician team members into existing clinics, while work happens to open 10 Family Health Clinics across Alberta.

All FHTs will have integrated mental health professionals, supported by the Alberta NDP’s commitment to insure five sessions for every Albertan under the provincial insurance plan.

“Today we lay out the initial building blocks of what we intend to be the largest and most ambitious healthcare recruitment campaign Alberta has ever seen,” Notley added. “Part of our offer to professionals will be stable and rewarding workplaces where you can focus on providing healthcare and spend less time on paperwork and administration.”

The transitional funding would cost $600 million divided over four years, plus a one-time capital investment of $60 million, $75 million in annual operating, and $5 million annually for Indigenous consultations and early program proposals.

The NDP’s full report can be seen below:

https://drive.google.com/file/u/0/d/1AbH5GJmYyqS64z1PRFqzMISjkh4mXsec/view

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Alberta NDP pitches $150 million a year to hire medical workers in primary health care team clinics

NDP Leader Rachel Notley said at a news conference Wednesday the party’s plan will ultimately take pressure off hospitals and ambulances, and help keep and recruit workers in part by rebuilding trust with health-care professionals

Alberta’s Opposition NDP is promising, if elected, to spend $150 million a year to hire 1,500 health care professionals as part of a new model that aims to boost the number of patients family doctors can see.

An NDP proposal released Wednesday estimated the extra workers, to be on the ground by the end of next year in new integrated primary health teams, will help 75,000 Albertans currently not able to find a family physician get access to primary care.

An NDP proposal released Wednesday estimated the extra workers, to be on the ground by the end of next year in new integrated primary health teams, will help 75,000 Albertans currently not able to find a family physician get access to primary care.

NDP Leader Rachel Notley said at a news conference Wednesday the party’s plan will ultimately take pressure off hospitals and ambulances, and help keep and recruit workers in part by rebuilding trust with health-care professionals.

“We need to keep (physicians) wanting to do this job. This is not ‘field of dreams.’ It’s a real thing that’s come as a result of multiple years of conversations with family practitioners …They don’t necessarily want to be working 80 hours a week running their own clinic. They’d prefer to be in a team so they can focus on what they do best, which is providing care to Albertans,” said Notley.

The plan points to some clinics in Alberta that have already implemented a similar model, including the Crowfoot Village Family Practice in Calgary and the Taber Clinic.

Notley said each doctor at the Crowfoot Village Family Practice has been able to take on 40 per cent more patients than a traditional practice because many of their patient’s needs can be looked after by an allied professional.

“We can build on the success of those clinics,” she said.

When asked by a reporter how the NDP would recruit 1,500 health-care workers in the midst of a shortage across jurisdictions exacerbated by COVID-19, Notley said among some 80,000 allied health professionals already working in the province, some could be brought back from retirement, others coaxed into full time, and more foreign-trained professionals could be brought into the mix.

“It’s practical, it’s achievable and I feel confident we’re going to be able to get there,” said Notley, whose party promised to build 10 new clinics and expand others with $75 million in operating costs and $60 million in capital costs.

UCP Health Minister Jason Copping’s office responded to a request for comment from Postmedia by highlighting its work to recruit and retain the workforce, but didn’t address the specifics of the primary health team proposal.

“We have record numbers of doctors, nurses, and other frontline staff working in our health system — thousands more than under the NDP,” said spokesman Scott Johnston, who pointed to increases to the health budget in past years and a $600 million increase expected for 2023-24.

Johnston counted an extra 700 physicians, 1,800 registered nurses and 300 paramedics in the province since the UCP was elected in 2019, and pointed to the UCP’s work in reducing surgical wait times.

“We need to do more, and we will, with new funding and new initiatives coming in Budget 2023 on Feb. 28,” he said.

Notley said she’s in support of scaling up the UCP’s initiative, announced last week, to boost student aid and classroom space for nurses with foreign training.

On Thursday, Copping is expected to announce cash to boost the province’s health workforce challenges.

Even though it is a federal responsibility, the NDP also promised Wednesday to invest $5 million towards Indigenous consultations and early program proposals.

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Alberta Opposition NDP promise health teams to improve access to family physicians

Rachel Notley, Premier of Alberta, makes a speech during the official opening of the Suncor Fort Hills near Fort McKay, Alberta, Canada, on Monday, September 10, 2018. Photographer: Ben Nelms/Bloomberg

CALGARY — Alberta’s Opposition NDP is promising more access to a family doctor by creating health teams.

NDP Leader Rachel Notley says if her party forms government after the spring election, its goal would be for a million or more Albertans to be able to see their family doctor within a day or two near where they live.

Notley says the government would create family health teams, which include a doctor working alongside related specialists such as mental health therapists, dietitians, physiotherapists, licensed practical nurses and midwives.

The plan would be for patients to see some of these related specialists during some visits, allowing the physician more time to see more patients and spend less time on paperwork.

There would be a transition fund to immediately begin hiring 1,500 non-physician team members into existing clinics, while work continues to open 10 family health clinics.

Both the NDP and the United Conservative Party government are working on ways to end family physician shortages, particularly outside major urban centres, which are causing domino effects of jammed hospital emergency wards.

Notley says an NDP government would recruit the necessary staff by luring back health professionals who may have quit or retired but may be willing to return to practices that promise more stable hours, a reduced workload and less red tape.

“When you walk into a family health clinic, you will have immediate access to a range of primary-care professionals who will help you respond to a problem, manage a chronic condition and generally support you in maintaining good physical and mental health,” Notley told reporters Wednesday in Calgary.

“This means less waiting, less running around to referrals, and less repeating of your story to one new person after another.”

Notley noted similar programs are already running successfully in two clinics, one in Calgary and the other in Taber in southern Alberta.

Alberta Health spokesman Scott Johnston said the government has a number of recruiting plans to ease the physician shortage.

He said the government is boosting recruitment of internationally trained doctors and nurses while adding bridging spaces and a new bursary to help cover costs for internationally educated nurses.

There will be 2,500 new seats in training programs for health-care professionals and expansions are planned to Alberta’s two medical schools with satellite programs to train more physicians for rural practice.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 15, 2023

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Alberta Justice spokespeople deliver duelling statements on prosecutor email review

EDMONTON — An email probe into whether Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s office interfered with Crown prosecutors took a confusing turn Friday after two government spokespeople delivered duelling statements that raised questions over how far back the search went.

The Justice Department said Monday it had done a four-month search of ingoing, outgoing and deleted emails and found no evidence of contact.

Two days later, Alberta Justice communications director Charles Mainville said in a statement that deleted emails are wiped from the system after 30 days, meaning the search for deleted emails may not have covered the entire time period in question.

On Thursday night, Ethan Lecavalier-Kidney, a spokesman for Justice Minister Tyler Shandro, responded to questions about Mainville’s statement. He said while emails are deleted after 30 days, they live on in the system for another 30 and could have been checked that far back by investigators.

“For example, if an email was deleted on Oct. 17, 2022, the email would no longer be accessible to the user as of Nov. 16, 2022, but would continue to be available to our investigation team until Dec. 16, 2022,” said Lecavalier-Kidney in his statement.

A 60-day search would have stretched back to late November, capturing all but the first six weeks of Smith’s United Conservative Party government. Smith was sworn in as premier on Oct. 11.

But while Lecavalier-Kidney’s statement said investigators could go back 60 days, it did not state that they did so, leaving confusion on how far back they went.

When asked Friday to clarify whether investigators went back 30 or 60 days on the deleted emails, Lecavalier-Kidney did not respond to questions while Mainville reissued the original statements in an email.

The government has also delivered conflicting messages on who was investigated in the review.

Smith promised that emails from all Crown prosecutors and the 34 staffers in her office would be checked.

However, the Justice Department later said emails between “relevant” prosecutors and Smith staffers were checked. It did not say how it determined who was relevant.

The Coutts blockade and COVID-19 protest at the border crossing last year saw RCMP lay charges against several people, ranging from mischief to conspiracy to commit murder.

Smith has said she did not direct prosecutors in the Coutts cases and the email review exonerated her office from what she called “baseless” allegations in the CBC story.

The CBC has said that it has not seen the emails in question, but stands by its reporting.

The Opposition NDP said questions stemming from the CBC story, coupled with multiple conflicting statements from the premier on what she has said to Justice Department officials about the COVID-19 cases, can only be resolved through an independent investigation.

Smith has given six versions in recent weeks of what she has said to justice officials about COVID-19 cases.

Smith has said she talked to prosecutors directly and did not talk to prosecutors directly. She has said she reminded justice officials of general prosecution guidelines, but at other times reminded them to consider factors unique to COVID-19 cases. She has also suggested the conversations are ongoing and that they have ended.

She has attributed the confusion to “imprecise” word choices.

Smith has long been openly critical of COVID-19 masking, gathering and vaccine mandate rules, questioning if they were needed to fight the pandemic and labelling them intolerable violations of personal freedoms.

She has also called those unvaccinated against COVID-19 the most discriminated group she has seen in her lifetime.

Last fall, Smith said charges in the cases were grounded in politics and should be open to political solutions. But she recently said it’s important to let the court process play out independently.