Health, Seniors & Community Support Policy

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The Official Opposition believes in a strong, publicly funded, and publicly delivered healthcare system.

Fixing Health Care: A Phased Approach

Everyone wants to be healthy. Everyone wants their loved ones to be healthy. Albertans want to feel confident that their public health care system will be there when they need it.

Right now, that confidence is being sorely tested by long wait times in emergency rooms and for elective surgery, a shortage of doctors and nurses, and stories about neglect of seniors in extended care.

A province as prosperous as ours shouldn’t have problems like these. It should have one of the best health care systems in the world.

But years of mismanagement have left public health care in disarray. Before Alberta’s health care system can reach its true potential, we have to return to basics. Health care can be revitalized if we:

  • Return control of delivery of health care to the regional level
  • Ensure everyone has access to a family doctor
  • Ensure public delivery of quality, affordable continuing/long-term care
  • Revitalize prevention programs for healthier citizens and long-term cost savings.


This document outlines a common-sense, realistic plan to accomplish those four initial goals and lay the foundation of a restored and revitalized public health care system – one that finally works for all Albertans. We’ll take carefully measured steps to immediately address the worst problems facing the system while preparing for more sweeping improvements in the medium to long term. We’ll make steady but significant improvements in the five major facets of health care: how the system works, hospitals and clinics, access, doctors and nurses, and keeping you healthy.

For full details read Fixing Health Care: A Phased Approach.

Pulling Through: David Swann’s Emergency Plan for the Emergency Room

To help Alberta weather the emergency room overcrowding crisis, David came up with a solid plan. Called Pulling Through, Swann’s seven-step plan includes:

  • The creation of an emergency task force of top-tier health care professionals to get people moving through emergency rooms more quickly
  • The mobilization of all available health care professionals to help cope with the immediate ER crisis until long-term measures can take effect
  • A campaign to help Albertans navigate the health care system more effectively
  • The immediate creation of alternative long-term care settings
  • Extended hours for diagnostic testing
  • Opening mothballed acute care beds
  • Planning for the future – specifically, an orderly transition from the top-down Alberta Health Services model to more local control of health care delivery

For more details , read Pulling Through.

Dignity and Care for Alberta Seniors

Seniors helped build Alberta, and they deserve respect, dignity and proper care when they need it. 

  • We support expanding the public delivery of continuing care services, rather than depending on private industry to fill the need that clearly exists for Alberta’s seniors.
  • Ensure that there is sufficient capacity of all types of continuing care facilities in the province, so that the “First Bed Policy” can be eliminated.
  • Index link AISH payments so that the assistance that AISH recipients receive accurately reflects the increase in the cost of living they experience.
  • Create an Independent Seniors Advocate office, which would report directly to the legislature regarding systemic issues that seniors face. This would give seniors a person to go to when they feel they have a need to be directed to the right resources. We would also create an independent office for seniors that will help maintain and defend their rights, and provide an avenue for redress when they feel they need assistance.
  • Ensure that the standard of pay between government staff and contracted agencies are comparable, so those both delivering and receiving assistance from contracted agencies know that the staff are both sufficiently trained and compensated for their important work.

Health, Seniors & Community Support Responses & Questions

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17 February 2012

Premier a hypocrite on patient safety:  Sherman

Hospital workers owed an apology
Premier Alison Redford’s reaction to the AUPE hospital support workers’ wildcat strike reveals “a stupendous level of hypocrisy,” says Alberta Liberal Leader Raj Sherman.

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16 February 2012

Sherman stands behind striking hospital support staff

Edmonton – Official Opposition Leader Raj Sherman rallied striking hospital support staff at the Royal Alexandra this morning, and he will continue to support their call for fair treatment.

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15 February 2012

PC mismanagement of mental health services failing Albertans

Edmonton – Alberta Liberal Health Critic David Swann says government mismanagement of both inpatient and outpatient mental health services is putting Albertans and their families at risk.

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13 February 2012

No dignity for Albertans who die in provincial care

Edmonton – Edmonton-Centre MLA Laurie Blakeman reveals a deplorable government policy that robs children, AISH recipients and the poor of the dignity of a decent burial.

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31 January 2012

Bed bugs biting Alberta seniors

Edmonton – Official Opposition Leader Raj Sherman and Edmonton-Centre MLA Laurie Blakeman say the state of some publicly funded seniors’ accommodations is unhealthy and an affront to the human dignity of Alberta’s seniors.

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24 January 2012

Code Red crisis and weak ministerial response prompts Official Opposition to activate health hotline

Call 1-888-886-2834 to improve ambulance and emergency service in Alberta

Calgary – Official Opposition Health Critic David Swann has been following the Code Red crisis – the dangerous shortage of ambulances, paramedics, and backlogged emergency rooms– very carefully. The stories from paramedics and other front-line staff coupled with today’s response from the Minister of Health have prompted the Official Opposition to activate a hotline so that Alberta’s health care professionals and their patients can share their stories and help convince the government that urgent action is required to fix the system

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23 January 2012

PDD dollars used to pad PC party pocketbook?

Edmonton – Official Opposition Seniors and Community Supports Critic Harry Chase is releasing documents today that show the PDD (Persons with Developmental Disabilities) board in Red Deer allocated some of their operational funding to reimburse board members for attending a partisan Progressive Conservative fundraiser.

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20 January 2012

Sherman would put new federal health dollars to good use

Edmonton – Official Opposition Leader Raj Sherman says the PC government’s refusal to say whether or not billions of dollars in federal health transfers will be used on health care shows an appalling lack of common sense.

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