EDMONTON — Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi on Tuesday urged the Alberta government to declare a state of emergency over the strain on emergency rooms and to reinstate a single healthcare system command. "This is not just, 'it's a bad flu season.' This is an unprecedented crisis in our emergency rooms and our ambulance services, symptomatic of a system that is broken down," said Nenshi in a press conference. "The health care system has to be there when you need it, and what we are seeing is that the health care system, for too many people, is not there when we need it."The NDP have challenged Premier Danielle Smith's government to declare a state of emergency for Alberta's emergency rooms, reestablish a central command over Alberta's healthcare system, and reconvene the Alberta Legislature so that officials can hold an emergency debate. .Nenshi's comments follow a leaked document sent by Alberta ER doctors to Smith.The document detailed six "preventable deaths" and numerous "near misses" in Alberta ERs over two weeks amid over-demand. "Our thoughts go out to all of those families that have been affected by those needless deaths and those needless further escalations of illness because of the situation in our emergency rooms today. I'm sorry," Nenshi said. Alberta doctors have been calling on the province to declare a state of emergency for weeks, arguing that it would give them the resources and powers needed to alleviate pressure on emergency rooms."In the very short term, it is time to declare a state of emergency for Alberta's emergency rooms," Nenshi said. We are operating well over 100% capacity in many hospitals with unsafe conditions for many people." Nenshi would like to see this declaration stay in place until every hospital in the province is operating at under 100% capacity, and a plan is in place to get those numbers down to 85 or 90% capacity. .Following numerous scandals involving AHS, Smith's government disassembled and reformed Alberta's healthcare system under four branches, overseen by four separate ministries. Nenshi and many Alberta doctors argue that it is time to reconsolidate that authority. "It's very clear that splitting AHS up into what are now 11 different agencies, each with their own CEOs and layers of management, is not working," Nenshi said. "We could have told them this a long time ago, at the very least, if they're not willing to reverse this horrifying policy, the government needs to have real decision-making authority centralized."Physicians and other medical leaders have argued that this disunion has led to confusion about who is in charge in certain jurisdictions and where to turn for guidance. "What we need is to ensure that there is one group that has decision-making authority that is making decisions across acute care, primary care, assisted living and recovery, to figure out the best way to address this issue in our emergency rooms," Nenshi said. The NDP leader's final demand was that the premier reconvene the Alberta Legislature, which has been on break since mid-December, to allow elected officials to debate how the province's ER crisis can be best addressed."We're (the NDP caucus) happy to negotiate with them if they believe that this is, in fact, a crisis and it deserves the government standing to account in the legislature," Nenshi said..The UCP government claims to have worked with Alberta physicians and instituted measures to help alleviate some of those stresses. This includes the institution of a triage liaison whose role is to work alongside ER physicians and facilitate treatment for patients before they are assigned a bed. Additional measures include activating surge and overcapacity plans, including temporary beds where staffing allows, accelerated discharges and transfers, designated surge spaces, and limits on non-essential inbound transfers.Provincial health officials have partially blamed Alberta's current ER crisis on a more severe-than-expected flu season. They have, however, said they are confident these demands are on the decline. Respiratory virus hospitalizations peaked on Dec. 30 at 995 patients, and fell to 665 during the week of Jan. 4 to 10. Alberta's Minister of Hospital and Surgical Health Services, Matt Jones, is scheduled to speak at a press conference alongside the Minister of Infrastructure, Martin Long, on Tuesday at 2 p.m.The ministers will also be providing an update on work to expand the emergency department at Calgary's Peter Lougheed Centre.
