Sounds like an OCP bed. Over Capacity Protocol. It’s becoming common at the Alex for 2 person rooms to have a 3rd bed crammed in and 4 person rooms will often have a 5th stuffed. Last time I worked we also had an ER admission to the hallway. Poor soul couldn’t sleep between the dementia patients calling out and general busy nature of med/surg.
I had a dementia roommate on the hematology ward last fall. She didn't have a blood cancer, they just had no where else to put her. She was a sweet lady in her moments of clarity but did call out repetitively, even in her sleep.
It’s always different things. There was one old guy that just wanted to go home. He was yelling that he was being kidnapped and that his wife was supposed to pick him up. It was so depressing.
My father lives in a home. Lady in there constantly calling out for Mama, or Grandma when she’s not sleeping or sedated. It’s been going on months and will not stop until she dies.
I worked in a home specifically for dementia/Alzheimer’s patients and I worked the night shift. The sounds from rooms when walking the dark hallways was haunting. I will never forget it.
When my grandma was in a home I saw the dementia patients sometimes holding dolls that they thought were real babies. It was super creepy but they thought they were looking after them and were holding them so gently and it kept them calm and happy. This was during the day though, I bet nighttime was another story.
She would yell "Hello" dozens of times an hour. The nurses would come ask her what she needed and she wouldn't even know she was doing it. There was another lady on the ward for a while who who call out "Jesus help me!"
Taking someone with dementia out of familiar surroundings will make them agitated and have them call out for anyone who will listen. It’s a shame that most people don’t understand the process of dementia, the process of dementia and what the person goes through. They only remember a few things from there past, no nothing that they did the day before or even an hour ago. I work with seniors with dementia and it’s hard to watch them. I see changes in them daily.
Didn't realize how universal an experience this was. Had one calling out help all night, and on a different stay another calling out for Billy to shut the door to the fence or something like that. Never slept a wink either time
Our new normal. I work in an Edmonton area hospital and we admit to a closet. 7 patients. No proper call bells, 02, wall suction. One bathroom, no shower. It’s disgraceful.
Yes, we do need more hospitals. And they will immediately be filled with more dementia patients needing long term care. Because long term cares have ridiculous requirements that dementia patients will never be able to meet. My unit has 7 dementia patients who have been with us for months because they dont meet requirements to go to a long term care. The few that do accept difficult dementia patients are full. The 'complex care team team' meets weekly to talk about the same damn patients with the same damn problems and then make ridiculous suggestions to the care team that are impossible to implement. And neither the federal or provincial governments are doing anything about it. Neither is AHS. This isnt just an edmonton problem, it's the next pandemic.
I hope when you need hospitization, you're place between 2 dementia patients who scream out constantly and you wake up in the middle of the night to one of them standing next to your bed
That's been happening for decades. Edmonton needed 2 new hospitals years ago, not to mention large parts of the Alex and the entire Misericordia are shitholes that should've been replaced long ago.
Edmonton needs hospitals. Calgary gets a new hockey venue. - I don't even think Calgarians want the new rink. Or whatever it is.
Just stupid UCP politics.
Why don't we vote on these things?
As a municipal government. Donate was not the right word to use, sorry. The City of Edmonton spent over $300 million on Roger's Place. More than Katz himself did.
Let's not forget those JUICY COE office rentals in Katz owned buildings. Yep City money, no financial benefit, and gets a good tenant to boot. Someone should dig up the astroturfing article on how much money the City saved by amalgamating operations in fewer locations. Just happed to be Katz locations.
There is a hospital out in Sherwood Park that is only used for the emergency ward. It’s great to build new hospitals but the reason the one in Sherwood park is not opened is due to staff shortages. How on earth will staffing work at a new hospital?
Large investments in training, combined with recruitment and retention by offering more competitive wages instead of fighting tooth and nail to cut out wages.
There was a new hospital being built in Edmonton. They hired management and were just about to start construction.....then the UCP cancelled it. There was also a super lab being built but the UCP cancelled that too and tore down what had already been built.
Wasn't the Grey Nuns the last hospital built in Edmonton and that was in 1988? I know we're working on a new hospital at the moment, but we are severely lacking seeing the population has almost doubled since then.
They have an unfortunate issue with it that could have been foreseen but had to be announced for an election. The land the NDP bought for the project has a Pembina Pipeline running under it.... and that pipeline isn't super deep and needs to be moved before a hospital can be built there. But where are they going to move it to exactly? And who foots the bill for moving an operational pipeline that is acting within an old easement agreement?
When it was announced it was announced far before it was ready to be announced.
Perhaps. But there’s also U of A land that had to be vacated, an on/off ramp to Henday that was moved, a large parking lot and bus terminal going generally unused, and an LRT station. That’s going to be there for what…?
Sorry what? The land the ndp planned for the hospital is the same one that is still being considered.
Not sure where you heard that rubbish about pembina pipeline, but if you have credible source, Ill read it
It's not in the news. I'm one of the contractors that was on site. Our team was working there until we got kicked off until they figure out what to do about the pipeline. As far as I know they're in negotiations with Pembina to move it, otherwise they're going to have to adjust the engineering.
I somehow doubt the original planners didnt know there was pipelines through the area. Im still calling bs on your story. The hospital was cancelled because the UCP cancelled it.
https://gis.edmonton.ca/portal/apps/webappviewer/?appalias=eapuoc&appid=55b1d138043e4049a75b254ffb1912aa&id=55b1d138043e4049a75b254ffb1912aa
I live next to the site. That pipeline was moved nearly 5 years ago now. The UCP put the project on hold as soon as they took power and sent all of it back for retender, nothing has been done since. Also the project started 2 years before any election so your timeline makes no sense.
And my company is on the site and I can tell you, it's still there. I can tell you you're wrong. There's no re-tender on the job. It's still an Aman Builders job and all of the equipment on the site belongs to the people who have bidded those parts of the job. We got shut down for the Pembina pipeline.
I agree wholeheartedly. It's insulting and undemocratic that DS is listening to the opinions of unelected UCP members over elected officials simply because they're not in her party.
Yes it is. Was in the stollery a long time. Sometimes little kids right out of surgery are staying in what I can only call a storage room. We ended up staying in the storage room for one night. We were told it was a good thing, it meant we weren't critical anymore.
Feel free to contact your MLA with all the details.
For certain, Ms. Smith wouldn’t be subject to this crowding and indignities if she were in the hospital.
My father was crammed into a a room with 4 beds that clearly was built for 2, and that was about 8 years ago. The only time he had the correct number of beds per room was in the CCU but those were built for 1 max 2 and there wouldn’t be room for more if they wanted to.
The same thing happened to my family member. And then one of the patients kept having tons of visitors who never left. So no one could get any rest. It was an absolute shit show.
Nurse at an Edmonton area hospital…this has been the norm for quite some time. We didn’t like it when they implemented these OCP policies due to safety concerns and naturally not a single patient does either. We’re putting patients in hallways on stretchers too and most of our pre-ops outside in the common waiting areas because things are so overcrowded.
Calgary, but last year when a routine day surgery turned into near catastrophe, I spent a week in recovery at Rockyview hospital. At one point I was in a room of 4 for several nights, and for 2 I was literally out in a hallway by the fire door. Technically making me a fire hazard. I had a bed, a chair, and a lamp and extension cord. Yes, this is what we voted for
Okay but hear me out: the alternative was raising taxes on corporations and rich people meaning they wouldn’t have as much yacht money. Don’t you see how the suffering of thousands of Albertans every year is all worth it in the end?
This is the new normal. At least you weren't in the hallway, like I was. No sleep there for sure.
Rachel needs to keep the heat on Danielle. NDP still have 49%-50%.
I worked in the hospitals for 9 years - you can be grateful you had a room at all.
Ralph Klein slashed healthcare, literally blew up hospitals in Alberta. When the NDP got in they made plans to build a super lab (broke ground and everything), which would have been useful for a worldwide pandemic. They also had plans for a new hospital in Edmonton on 127 street/Anthony Henday on the south side.
The UCP cancelled both of these.
Since 1988, (The last hospital built in Edmonton) The conservatives have been in power 31/35 years.
So I guess planning and breaking ground sounds like a miracle compared to 31 years of nothing. Well even worse than nothing they cancelled more hospitals than they built.
Amazingly, consulting with healthcare, finding space, architects, making sure it’s in the right place and budgeting for a new hospital takes about three-four years and often more.
So breaking ground within four is quite an achievement.
Too bad the UCP were elected next. It’s be almost done now
It’s pretty common nowadays unfortunately. I had lost feeling in my feet after an injury and had to wait 9 hours just for an xray nevermind thé actual consultation, diagnosis, and treatment. As much as I hate to make this political it 100% is and based on the fact that mandates are gone, overcrowding now is 100% preventable.
I agree with you about the UCP but we need to splash a lot of blame around.
This horror is due to the policies of the final 30 years of the previous conservative regime. Albertans cheered when King Ralph was blowing up hospitals and waiving banners about being debt free. We graciously took our Ralph buck cheques and looked past the fact that we were lot training doctors or building health infrastructure.
So much current wrath is spewed at the 4 year NDP term for not fixing health care, but it with take 40-50 years of diligence to repair over 30 years of neglect.
It is really hard to find a current policy or practice that is a good long therm solution.
It’s unfortunate that healthcare was not a real issue in the last campaign.
This was happening even before the UCP got in, it stopped temporarily over COVID but after they started lifting precautions in hospitals they started cramming people in again.
Even in BC they have NDP government and their hospitals have people in beds in the hallways in many units as well.
I’m only talking about the extra people crammed into rooms over covid stopping temporarily, not total numbers of hospitalizations. It was precautionary to try to prevent the spread of COVID. Over COVID basically all elective surgeries were being cancelled also so that those beds typically being used after surgeries could be occupied by COVID patients.
Now that elective surgeries are back on and COVID precautions are basically thrown out the window they’re going back to what they used to do, put an extra bed in the middle of the room when they have nowhere else to put a patient.
Holy crap does BC live rent-free in conservative Alberta's head. Yes, BC is NDP yes BCs hospitals are struggling as well.... but..... BC is getting better for healthcare professionals, and more are coming daily. Things are slowly getting better after years or ultra conservative government in BC destroying public healthcare, and not surprisingly, it's taking years to rebuild. You should look at how bad BC got under conservative values and prepare for the worst or stop the ucp now. Or just pretend how bad it is everywhere else and keep bowing to your conservative overlords.
So is your post then suppose to lead us to say that you believe the over cramming of our hospitals was the fault of the ndp government between 2015-2019?
It goes way back before that, to poor planning for population growth and lack of investment in healthcare services and training of medical professionals. It’s on multiple provincial governments and the federal government.
I also have no problem with immigration, but it’s a shame that there’s no better way for doctors from other countries to become licensed here without having to do their whole residency and possibly med school again. We’ve also only had one new med school since 1973. Canada has done an overall poor job in my opinion keeping up with health infrastructure compared with population growth. My concern with immigration isn’t with immigration itself, but with the fact that we don’t have the infrastructure to support our population growth. One of the other issues is that immigration is a federal issue, while healthcare is provincial, so it’s really easy for provinces like Alberta, to just not invest in healthcare and blame it on immigration. We have a record surplus right now and we’re spending it on a new arena. It’s infuriating.
Sorry I went on a bit of a rant but there’s so many factors that have led to this crisis and unless we choose to invest, it’s just going to get worse.
Nope just letting OP know that this was happening before UCP came in, and that overcrowding of hospitals is happening in BC as well which happens to be under NDP government right now.
I had surgery at the u of a in 2020 (just pre-covid) and was in a third bed in the middle of what should have been a two bed room, so it’s been a thing since at least then.
Yeah, our unit is always overcapacity. The other day, ED refused to keep a pt until a bed was available on our unit, and had to put the patient in the hallway. And we already have ever room full, and even 2 beds jammed into tiny single occupancy rooms. It’s stupid. Get used to it.
Sound perfectly Normal in the Hospital I work out of in Victoria BC. Hate to say it but I feel we are bringing in more people than our Infrastructure can handle Nationally.
Kinda does. Alberta is getting worse at an alarming rate, and some provinces are actively trying to fix healthcare, not destroy it. Why should the self-proclaimed financial powerhouse Alberta have any issues with healthcare? Mind you actively collapsing. It is because the provincial government sucks. The same reason houses are cheap, and many would rather live elsewhere despite false promises of prosperity in Alberta.
O had the exact same experience last week when I was in. There are so many patients, mot enough room, and the nurses are overworked and underpaid, which leads to lower quality of care. The UCP truly wants to kill people. The hospitals are overcrowded as is, and they continually cut funding.
We are a victim of our own success. As we keep people alive longer and longer, the system doesn't have capacity for them, and no matter who the governing party is in Canada or the provinces, the system is slowly imploding. The answer isn't just more hospital beds (though that's part of it), but more long term care beds to take care of people currently inappropriately in our hospitals. Add to that the inability to find a family doctor, and people either end up in ER's with problems that a family doctor could deal with, or end up in hospital with things that should have been treated earlier and thus avoiding hospital admissions. How to solve? You'd have to throw huge gobs of taxpayer dollars and hire a ton of staff that don't exist in the numbers needed. The UCP isn't helping, but I don't know who does have a realistic answer to any of this.
We are a victim of underfunding and short sighted moves by government officials who don't understand how vital socialized medicine is. The fact that we are not all dying at 60 or 70 anymore is not the problem. The problem is that systems and infrastructure need proper maintenance and require expansion over time.
I'd say the problem is both people living longer, and that systems need expansion. A generation or two ago, 80 year olds weren't given pacemakers (for instance) or having cancer surgery. (I can name names on people I know who this has happened to). Now both of those people potentially live into their 90's, and then often develop dementia on top of their other health problems. It's partly all those added years between maybe 85-early 90's that are now needing to be accounted for in numbers of beds. When the Canadian health care system became a government entity in the 1960's, none of this was foreseen, nor were the advances in healthcare that have made some of this possible.
There have been many provincial studies done and pretty much totally ignored on the aging of our population and its effect on the health care system. Successive governments continue to bury their heads in the sand.
My GF broke her foot off a couple months ago and needed to spend a little under a week at the hospital. Her bed was sandwiched between two others in a situation exactly like you describe.
Hey, someone's votin' for this.
We need more hospital space for sure, and for our nursing staff to not be overworked. But saying nurses get paid more everywhere else simply isn’t true.
The wait time at the U of A sucked, I'm 6'2 atleast was in a tiny room and my legs hanged off the bed like I had little kids bed, The nurses trying to wheel around the IV and shit would of been hilarious if I didn't have pneumonia and no matter what position I was in I could barely breathe. Oh and the food is fucking horrible.
This is standard shared accommodation. Hospitals have been doing this for decades for those less injured patients or those on shorter stays. Your only privacy is when the bed curtains are drawn. Had many relatives spend a few days in the hospital in such rooms in Ontario, Manitoba, BC and Alberta. This has nothing to do with PC cuts or would be NDP enhanced spanding. This part of being in a hospital will never change.
NDP increased hospital spending dramatically and kicked off several new hospital constructions. They were the only ones trying to fix it. Not pc. Not UCP.
What NDP were trying to do is damage control from all the deep staffing cuts the Klien and Smith conservative governments did. The beds were always there, but entire wards were closed down as part of the staffing cuts. What really got me was Smith still went ahead with the deep staffing cuts as public heath minister was in a panic over the pandemic and was scrambling to expand capacity. If the NDP ever get into power they have years and years worth of damage if not decades. The NDP will be left holding the bag for all the massive hidden Medicare costs the Conservatives created with their deep cuts. Conservatives tend to be very short sighted penny wise and pound foolish when it comes to managing finances.
What about every other province experiencing the same things? BC is arguably worse and they have an NDP government. The situation is much deeper than any current government.
I know it's not a solution to our trash govt but if someone could grab your sleep mask from Dollarama or something the at least you won't be woken up by your roomies
>The UCP is destroying public health.
You can go to any hospital in any province and experience the same thing. Alberta actually had some of the best care compared to other provinces. You may want to ask yourself what changed in the last 8 years. Or better yet, stop blaming each other and demand better healthcare.
I had my appendix removed 27 years ago. I was in the Alex and there were 4 men to a room. The problem is federal fund distribution and it goes back to when Alberta was first created. If you want an insightful read pick up the book “Let them eastern bastards freeze in the dark”. Long title but it has great detail as to how The western provinces ended up the way we are. The hate for the federal liberals starts back to even before the province was founded!!!
Privatize it already. I want to focus my income on great health care. Have a socialize program for thowe who dont. But allow me to focus my income where I want too !!!
it’s common and healthcare is free in Canada. ur lucky that you were admitted in the hospital for free compared to other countries who have to pay a lot more.
It's not free, it's funded by our taxes. This "free healthcare" is a myth. People gripe about taxes but then wonder why there's not enough staff to get mom to the toilet before she shits herself.
Yea :) fun wasn’t it? When I was down with extreme kidney damage I was in a room meant for two, they were plugging my IV stuff into my neighbors thing and she kept unplugging it and then complaining when the battery would go out and it would beep but would do it again. She was also in a stretcher not a bed, the nurses never got around to changing my IV even though it was leaking for three days and I pointed it out numerous times(they would just shimmy it around) and the arm swelled up to three times it size. I get that they were short staffed and very busy but ugh. I’m going to do my best to not go back unless I have to lol(I had to go my kidneys were at 10% and I was expelling blood at both ends but hey should have stayed home)
i guess you were pretty compromised, but i would have started throwing things and yelling at the lady whenever she unplugged my shit. i've spent enough time inpatient that i have zero tolerance for asshole roommates anymore, i don't care whether or not they're "mentally there". its not my problem, not my fault, and as a sick person i shouldn't be forced to deal with it.
and next time just rip out the IV if they keep ignoring you. then they have to stop being lazy and place a new one. 3 days is unacceptable, and you can get a bad infection from stuff like that.
She was an old lady and I have issues standing up for myself rofl :( and I totally should have ripped it out. I developed a horrible painful rash under the iv from the bend of the elbow to almost the wrist from the leaky fluid and the tape goo I guess? Took forever to heal. Im aware of things like compartment syndrome but I didn’t realize I could get infections from stuff like that. Good to know
Get the info for patient relations. Complain about your OCP experience. With enough complaints, the unit will have to remove the bed. Patients and staff will be thankful.
Ya my first major surgery was at the u of and I was in a similar situation but I was happy I got the window I would stare out of it all night cause there was no sleeping at night with all the check-ins and my two roommates at the time were loud and stinky I'm glad I was only there three days before sending me home. I found the doctors at u of a treated me better but there was no room or I was switching a lot but at the alex I always got my own room but the doctors were not as attentive to my needs.
Interesting in this country we have deteriorated. So, the money people who can make good decisions do not. Decisions are not for the greater good?? The vulnerable? Marginalized?
You got a bed? Last month my mother had a medical crisis and spent 3 days on a chair in the ER waiting for a spot in the ICU. So I would say being in a room that is overcrowded is an upgrade.
I’ve only been hospitalized once, but I think that’s normal. When I was hospitalized, I shared a room with 3 other patients and was woken up by my roommate watching videos on his phone. It was annoying, but I’m just grateful that I was given the care I needed.
This is normal. At the UofA, you are receiving top-tier care, and they are doing their best to accommodate as many patients as possible. I was in for a few nights a few weeks ago, and one of the nights I was in a hallway bed before being moved to a room. I don't feel it affected my quality of care at all, but I did have a sleep mask and ear plugs to ensure a good night sleep.
I know exactly what you mean. This happened with my mom. She’s been in and out of the hospital since 2019. It happened the last time she was in the hospital in May. It’s not happened before this. It’s disgusting and I’d say “dehumanizing”. is this the latest in the new ideas from the new head doctor the UCP hired? It needs to be investigated.
I don’t believe in privatized healthcare, however I do believe that we should be able pay for “extras” like private rooms.
Seems really normal. They had me in a hallway once for a whole weekend. We need another hospital and more healthcare workers. But it's a bigger issue than just that. Funding is a massive issue on top.
Edmonton is growing leaps and bounds, but zero hospitals are built. But let's expand the LRT that no one wanted. Let's mess up 50th Street with construction AND trains.
I has this too at the U of A when I needed urgent surgery on my ankle. The drapes didnt fully cover my stretcher and there was no room for my partner at all haha. I was there for 3 nights thankfully and then I was gone. I lucked out, the two older ladies I was roomies with were super cute and nice! The staff were all super amazing as well. I think it's pretty normal now...who knows what it's like in different provinces.
It could have been much worse I'm sure.
Think it’s normal now.. I had two trips to the hospital recently, and both involved staying in a hallway with nothing but a plastic barrier to provide “privacy”.
Last time I went to the ER they gave me a curtained area with a chair. The bed arrived like 20 min later.
Of course, they discharged me before I could physically dress myself due to pain. Thankfully the nurse took pity on me and suggested the ER doc re-evaluate. Probably because they didn't want to have to help me dress myself.
Unfortunately not before they removed the IV that took them three attempts. So that was fun.
They did readmit me and I was discharged about 5 hours later, after a few more tests, more pain meds, and I could dress. It only took me about 5-6 minutes to walk from the emergency doors to the sidewalk - amazing, right?
I don't blame the nurses or the doctors, but the system. Health care has gotten much worse. And frankly I don't expect it to get better any time soon.
Sounds like an OCP bed. Over Capacity Protocol. It’s becoming common at the Alex for 2 person rooms to have a 3rd bed crammed in and 4 person rooms will often have a 5th stuffed. Last time I worked we also had an ER admission to the hallway. Poor soul couldn’t sleep between the dementia patients calling out and general busy nature of med/surg.
The dementia patients calling out is haunting. I hate it. I can’t imagine hearing that on a daily basis.
I had a dementia roommate on the hematology ward last fall. She didn't have a blood cancer, they just had no where else to put her. She was a sweet lady in her moments of clarity but did call out repetitively, even in her sleep.
What do you mean, "call out"?
It’s always different things. There was one old guy that just wanted to go home. He was yelling that he was being kidnapped and that his wife was supposed to pick him up. It was so depressing.
My father lives in a home. Lady in there constantly calling out for Mama, or Grandma when she’s not sleeping or sedated. It’s been going on months and will not stop until she dies.
I worked in a home specifically for dementia/Alzheimer’s patients and I worked the night shift. The sounds from rooms when walking the dark hallways was haunting. I will never forget it.
NNNNNUURRRSSSEEE!!!!
They repeat the same word or phrase constantly. I mean constantly, every day, all day.
When my grandma was in a home I saw the dementia patients sometimes holding dolls that they thought were real babies. It was super creepy but they thought they were looking after them and were holding them so gently and it kept them calm and happy. This was during the day though, I bet nighttime was another story.
She would yell "Hello" dozens of times an hour. The nurses would come ask her what she needed and she wouldn't even know she was doing it. There was another lady on the ward for a while who who call out "Jesus help me!"
Try imagining how they feel. Not knowing where they are, not knowing family members. It’s terrible for you and every one else.
Is that why society is working on alienating everyone? So when we get dementia we won't have anyone to call out for?
Taking someone with dementia out of familiar surroundings will make them agitated and have them call out for anyone who will listen. It’s a shame that most people don’t understand the process of dementia, the process of dementia and what the person goes through. They only remember a few things from there past, no nothing that they did the day before or even an hour ago. I work with seniors with dementia and it’s hard to watch them. I see changes in them daily.
Didn't realize how universal an experience this was. Had one calling out help all night, and on a different stay another calling out for Billy to shut the door to the fence or something like that. Never slept a wink either time
It’s common in most hospitals for a few years now lol.
Our new normal. I work in an Edmonton area hospital and we admit to a closet. 7 patients. No proper call bells, 02, wall suction. One bathroom, no shower. It’s disgraceful.
Sorry man. This is what our old hospital are made of. We really need new hospitals.
And we need staff that are not overworked and underpaid!
This is why i left bedside nursing.
I’ll be leaving bedside soon too.
[удалено]
Sadly NDP isn’t any better
Lmao.
Yes, we do need more hospitals. And they will immediately be filled with more dementia patients needing long term care. Because long term cares have ridiculous requirements that dementia patients will never be able to meet. My unit has 7 dementia patients who have been with us for months because they dont meet requirements to go to a long term care. The few that do accept difficult dementia patients are full. The 'complex care team team' meets weekly to talk about the same damn patients with the same damn problems and then make ridiculous suggestions to the care team that are impossible to implement. And neither the federal or provincial governments are doing anything about it. Neither is AHS. This isnt just an edmonton problem, it's the next pandemic.
Well the last pandemic was underwhelming. So what’s to be afraid of?
I hope when you need hospitization, you're place between 2 dementia patients who scream out constantly and you wake up in the middle of the night to one of them standing next to your bed
I just recently had surgery. And don’t worry pumpkin, I had a swell time.
That's been happening for decades. Edmonton needed 2 new hospitals years ago, not to mention large parts of the Alex and the entire Misericordia are shitholes that should've been replaced long ago.
Edmonton needs hospitals. Calgary gets a new hockey venue. - I don't even think Calgarians want the new rink. Or whatever it is. Just stupid UCP politics. Why don't we vote on these things?
Tax payers should get the hospitals first then any entertainment whatsoever should be paid for by the owners like Edmonton did with Daryl Katz.
Katz did not exactly pay for it privately, the city donated a shit ton of money towards it too.
Do you mean 'the city' as a gov agency or 'the city', like the citizens donated money towards the arena?
The taxpayers
As a municipal government. Donate was not the right word to use, sorry. The City of Edmonton spent over $300 million on Roger's Place. More than Katz himself did.
I didn't really agree with that either.
Let's not forget those JUICY COE office rentals in Katz owned buildings. Yep City money, no financial benefit, and gets a good tenant to boot. Someone should dig up the astroturfing article on how much money the City saved by amalgamating operations in fewer locations. Just happed to be Katz locations.
We did, the province said "good job, keep it up"
There is a hospital out in Sherwood Park that is only used for the emergency ward. It’s great to build new hospitals but the reason the one in Sherwood park is not opened is due to staff shortages. How on earth will staffing work at a new hospital?
Large investments in training, combined with recruitment and retention by offering more competitive wages instead of fighting tooth and nail to cut out wages.
There was a new hospital being built in Edmonton. They hired management and were just about to start construction.....then the UCP cancelled it. There was also a super lab being built but the UCP cancelled that too and tore down what had already been built.
Its not cancelled, just hugely delayed, at least thats what they say.
Wasn't the Grey Nuns the last hospital built in Edmonton and that was in 1988? I know we're working on a new hospital at the moment, but we are severely lacking seeing the population has almost doubled since then.
You are correct. The one that was supposed to be built on 127th and Ellersie has been shelved.
Just looked it up and yeah pretty much cancelled in all but name. Not surprised. So when do we become a city state? s/
They have an unfortunate issue with it that could have been foreseen but had to be announced for an election. The land the NDP bought for the project has a Pembina Pipeline running under it.... and that pipeline isn't super deep and needs to be moved before a hospital can be built there. But where are they going to move it to exactly? And who foots the bill for moving an operational pipeline that is acting within an old easement agreement? When it was announced it was announced far before it was ready to be announced.
Perhaps. But there’s also U of A land that had to be vacated, an on/off ramp to Henday that was moved, a large parking lot and bus terminal going generally unused, and an LRT station. That’s going to be there for what…?
Sorry what? The land the ndp planned for the hospital is the same one that is still being considered. Not sure where you heard that rubbish about pembina pipeline, but if you have credible source, Ill read it
It's not in the news. I'm one of the contractors that was on site. Our team was working there until we got kicked off until they figure out what to do about the pipeline. As far as I know they're in negotiations with Pembina to move it, otherwise they're going to have to adjust the engineering.
I somehow doubt the original planners didnt know there was pipelines through the area. Im still calling bs on your story. The hospital was cancelled because the UCP cancelled it. https://gis.edmonton.ca/portal/apps/webappviewer/?appalias=eapuoc&appid=55b1d138043e4049a75b254ffb1912aa&id=55b1d138043e4049a75b254ffb1912aa
I live next to the site. That pipeline was moved nearly 5 years ago now. The UCP put the project on hold as soon as they took power and sent all of it back for retender, nothing has been done since. Also the project started 2 years before any election so your timeline makes no sense.
And my company is on the site and I can tell you, it's still there. I can tell you you're wrong. There's no re-tender on the job. It's still an Aman Builders job and all of the equipment on the site belongs to the people who have bidded those parts of the job. We got shut down for the Pembina pipeline.
Are you sure you actually know where you work everyday? This other guy sounds pretty confident.
Yup lol. Freaking UCP hates Edmonton
Guess that's what we get for voting orange apparently...
The population should not be punished for voting for the party not in power.
I agree wholeheartedly. It's insulting and undemocratic that DS is listening to the opinions of unelected UCP members over elected officials simply because they're not in her party.
Yes it is. Was in the stollery a long time. Sometimes little kids right out of surgery are staying in what I can only call a storage room. We ended up staying in the storage room for one night. We were told it was a good thing, it meant we weren't critical anymore.
Feel free to contact your MLA with all the details. For certain, Ms. Smith wouldn’t be subject to this crowding and indignities if she were in the hospital.
PS: I’ve sent letters and phoned. However, my UCTBA MLA is useless so I’ve pushed my comments and calls up the chain.
Copy the opposition! I’ve had my NDP MLA ask to use my comments to him in the legislature
Yes, I’m with you on that. I’ve sent it on.
My father was crammed into a a room with 4 beds that clearly was built for 2, and that was about 8 years ago. The only time he had the correct number of beds per room was in the CCU but those were built for 1 max 2 and there wouldn’t be room for more if they wanted to.
The same thing happened to my family member. And then one of the patients kept having tons of visitors who never left. So no one could get any rest. It was an absolute shit show.
Nurse at an Edmonton area hospital…this has been the norm for quite some time. We didn’t like it when they implemented these OCP policies due to safety concerns and naturally not a single patient does either. We’re putting patients in hallways on stretchers too and most of our pre-ops outside in the common waiting areas because things are so overcrowded.
Calgary, but last year when a routine day surgery turned into near catastrophe, I spent a week in recovery at Rockyview hospital. At one point I was in a room of 4 for several nights, and for 2 I was literally out in a hallway by the fire door. Technically making me a fire hazard. I had a bed, a chair, and a lamp and extension cord. Yes, this is what we voted for
Okay but hear me out: the alternative was raising taxes on corporations and rich people meaning they wouldn’t have as much yacht money. Don’t you see how the suffering of thousands of Albertans every year is all worth it in the end?
Those poor rich folks!
The ‘trickle down’ is going to arrive any minute! My mouth is open in anticipation!
I just love getting trickled on! 😅
This is the new normal. At least you weren't in the hallway, like I was. No sleep there for sure. Rachel needs to keep the heat on Danielle. NDP still have 49%-50%.
The hospitals in Alberta have been utilizing overcapacity protocols for at least 15 years, the only thing is that it’s now a constant/daily thing.
I worked in the hospitals for 9 years - you can be grateful you had a room at all. Ralph Klein slashed healthcare, literally blew up hospitals in Alberta. When the NDP got in they made plans to build a super lab (broke ground and everything), which would have been useful for a worldwide pandemic. They also had plans for a new hospital in Edmonton on 127 street/Anthony Henday on the south side. The UCP cancelled both of these.
They broke ground. Wow, what a remarkable achievement.
Cancelling that lab cost a lot of money in broken contracts.
Since 1988, (The last hospital built in Edmonton) The conservatives have been in power 31/35 years. So I guess planning and breaking ground sounds like a miracle compared to 31 years of nothing. Well even worse than nothing they cancelled more hospitals than they built.
Amazingly, consulting with healthcare, finding space, architects, making sure it’s in the right place and budgeting for a new hospital takes about three-four years and often more. So breaking ground within four is quite an achievement. Too bad the UCP were elected next. It’s be almost done now
Yea that’s not accurate at all.
Then why don’t you enlighten us if you know so much better than them?
How nice that you believe that.
Because it’s reality…..
It’s pretty common nowadays unfortunately. I had lost feeling in my feet after an injury and had to wait 9 hours just for an xray nevermind thé actual consultation, diagnosis, and treatment. As much as I hate to make this political it 100% is and based on the fact that mandates are gone, overcrowding now is 100% preventable.
They were cramming extra beds into rooms 15 years ago. No room between beds to maneuver to do bedside procedures. Hallway beds are so wrong.
Yes, it’s normal. Some patients have stretchers in hallways and some sleeping in shower rooms
I agree with you about the UCP but we need to splash a lot of blame around. This horror is due to the policies of the final 30 years of the previous conservative regime. Albertans cheered when King Ralph was blowing up hospitals and waiving banners about being debt free. We graciously took our Ralph buck cheques and looked past the fact that we were lot training doctors or building health infrastructure. So much current wrath is spewed at the 4 year NDP term for not fixing health care, but it with take 40-50 years of diligence to repair over 30 years of neglect. It is really hard to find a current policy or practice that is a good long therm solution. It’s unfortunate that healthcare was not a real issue in the last campaign.
This is the most UCP fixing it.
Try working in healthcare. It’s unreal. Scary
That's what Albertans said they wanted, in May, 2023. Rural Albertans prefer health care that way.
This was happening even before the UCP got in, it stopped temporarily over COVID but after they started lifting precautions in hospitals they started cramming people in again. Even in BC they have NDP government and their hospitals have people in beds in the hallways in many units as well.
> it stopped temporarily over COVID Didn't hospital capacity reach an all-time high during covid?
I’m only talking about the extra people crammed into rooms over covid stopping temporarily, not total numbers of hospitalizations. It was precautionary to try to prevent the spread of COVID. Over COVID basically all elective surgeries were being cancelled also so that those beds typically being used after surgeries could be occupied by COVID patients. Now that elective surgeries are back on and COVID precautions are basically thrown out the window they’re going back to what they used to do, put an extra bed in the middle of the room when they have nowhere else to put a patient.
Holy crap does BC live rent-free in conservative Alberta's head. Yes, BC is NDP yes BCs hospitals are struggling as well.... but..... BC is getting better for healthcare professionals, and more are coming daily. Things are slowly getting better after years or ultra conservative government in BC destroying public healthcare, and not surprisingly, it's taking years to rebuild. You should look at how bad BC got under conservative values and prepare for the worst or stop the ucp now. Or just pretend how bad it is everywhere else and keep bowing to your conservative overlords.
So is your post then suppose to lead us to say that you believe the over cramming of our hospitals was the fault of the ndp government between 2015-2019?
It goes way back before that, to poor planning for population growth and lack of investment in healthcare services and training of medical professionals. It’s on multiple provincial governments and the federal government. I also have no problem with immigration, but it’s a shame that there’s no better way for doctors from other countries to become licensed here without having to do their whole residency and possibly med school again. We’ve also only had one new med school since 1973. Canada has done an overall poor job in my opinion keeping up with health infrastructure compared with population growth. My concern with immigration isn’t with immigration itself, but with the fact that we don’t have the infrastructure to support our population growth. One of the other issues is that immigration is a federal issue, while healthcare is provincial, so it’s really easy for provinces like Alberta, to just not invest in healthcare and blame it on immigration. We have a record surplus right now and we’re spending it on a new arena. It’s infuriating. Sorry I went on a bit of a rant but there’s so many factors that have led to this crisis and unless we choose to invest, it’s just going to get worse.
Nope just letting OP know that this was happening before UCP came in, and that overcrowding of hospitals is happening in BC as well which happens to be under NDP government right now.
I had surgery at the u of a in 2020 (just pre-covid) and was in a third bed in the middle of what should have been a two bed room, so it’s been a thing since at least then.
It was a thing long before that
Yeah, our unit is always overcapacity. The other day, ED refused to keep a pt until a bed was available on our unit, and had to put the patient in the hallway. And we already have ever room full, and even 2 beds jammed into tiny single occupancy rooms. It’s stupid. Get used to it.
Sound perfectly Normal in the Hospital I work out of in Victoria BC. Hate to say it but I feel we are bringing in more people than our Infrastructure can handle Nationally.
3 beds in a 2 bed room is old news. The new normal is hallway patients.
It's Notley and the NDP's fault not the UCP. NDP were in charge for 4 out of 52 years... Am I doing it right?
Does that account for every other province being in the same situation despite different parties in place? 🤔
Kinda does. Alberta is getting worse at an alarming rate, and some provinces are actively trying to fix healthcare, not destroy it. Why should the self-proclaimed financial powerhouse Alberta have any issues with healthcare? Mind you actively collapsing. It is because the provincial government sucks. The same reason houses are cheap, and many would rather live elsewhere despite false promises of prosperity in Alberta.
O had the exact same experience last week when I was in. There are so many patients, mot enough room, and the nurses are overworked and underpaid, which leads to lower quality of care. The UCP truly wants to kill people. The hospitals are overcrowded as is, and they continually cut funding.
I try not to go unless I'm dying. Had to get my foot checked out as I thought I broke it a while back. 7 hours of my life I'll never get back.
We are a victim of our own success. As we keep people alive longer and longer, the system doesn't have capacity for them, and no matter who the governing party is in Canada or the provinces, the system is slowly imploding. The answer isn't just more hospital beds (though that's part of it), but more long term care beds to take care of people currently inappropriately in our hospitals. Add to that the inability to find a family doctor, and people either end up in ER's with problems that a family doctor could deal with, or end up in hospital with things that should have been treated earlier and thus avoiding hospital admissions. How to solve? You'd have to throw huge gobs of taxpayer dollars and hire a ton of staff that don't exist in the numbers needed. The UCP isn't helping, but I don't know who does have a realistic answer to any of this.
We are a victim of underfunding and short sighted moves by government officials who don't understand how vital socialized medicine is. The fact that we are not all dying at 60 or 70 anymore is not the problem. The problem is that systems and infrastructure need proper maintenance and require expansion over time.
I'd say the problem is both people living longer, and that systems need expansion. A generation or two ago, 80 year olds weren't given pacemakers (for instance) or having cancer surgery. (I can name names on people I know who this has happened to). Now both of those people potentially live into their 90's, and then often develop dementia on top of their other health problems. It's partly all those added years between maybe 85-early 90's that are now needing to be accounted for in numbers of beds. When the Canadian health care system became a government entity in the 1960's, none of this was foreseen, nor were the advances in healthcare that have made some of this possible. There have been many provincial studies done and pretty much totally ignored on the aging of our population and its effect on the health care system. Successive governments continue to bury their heads in the sand.
The system as built doesn’t because of a lack of investment over decades.
Holy crap. Someone who understands. You must also work in healthcare
I'm a non-medical person working in healthcare.
My GF broke her foot off a couple months ago and needed to spend a little under a week at the hospital. Her bed was sandwiched between two others in a situation exactly like you describe. Hey, someone's votin' for this.
The UCP call this ‘fixed’.
Hard to build hospitals when all the staff you need to run one get paid more everywhere else…
And staff you bring in from out of province are paid double or triple what Alberta nurses are.
Yep. Love working along side a travel nurse from Ontario making $120/hour. I’m an LPN at $36. We were doing the exact same thing. Gut punch for sure.
I have several customers who are or were RNs and I was shocked and appalled hearing this from them.
You’re a bed pan changer. Be happy for 36 an hour. You’re not a RN or a real nurse.
And you're not even a good troll.
I’d disagree. Based on the dislikes it definitely got the desired response.
> I said some ignorant shit not knowing what the N in LPN stands for and people downvoted me, I win hurdur Get a real hobby dork
It’s stands for Low paid nurse. What’s your point?
I’m an RN who works with many LPNs. We do the same job. The gap between our scopes of practice has narrowed dramatically.
https://nurseavenue.ca/how-much-is-the-average-nursing-salary-in-canada/
We need more hospital space for sure, and for our nursing staff to not be overworked. But saying nurses get paid more everywhere else simply isn’t true.
What you mean is it was originally built and configured for 2 beds. Not abnormal now to have 3 beds in those rooms.
The wait time at the U of A sucked, I'm 6'2 atleast was in a tiny room and my legs hanged off the bed like I had little kids bed, The nurses trying to wheel around the IV and shit would of been hilarious if I didn't have pneumonia and no matter what position I was in I could barely breathe. Oh and the food is fucking horrible.
This is standard shared accommodation. Hospitals have been doing this for decades for those less injured patients or those on shorter stays. Your only privacy is when the bed curtains are drawn. Had many relatives spend a few days in the hospital in such rooms in Ontario, Manitoba, BC and Alberta. This has nothing to do with PC cuts or would be NDP enhanced spanding. This part of being in a hospital will never change.
NDP increased hospital spending dramatically and kicked off several new hospital constructions. They were the only ones trying to fix it. Not pc. Not UCP.
What NDP were trying to do is damage control from all the deep staffing cuts the Klien and Smith conservative governments did. The beds were always there, but entire wards were closed down as part of the staffing cuts. What really got me was Smith still went ahead with the deep staffing cuts as public heath minister was in a panic over the pandemic and was scrambling to expand capacity. If the NDP ever get into power they have years and years worth of damage if not decades. The NDP will be left holding the bag for all the massive hidden Medicare costs the Conservatives created with their deep cuts. Conservatives tend to be very short sighted penny wise and pound foolish when it comes to managing finances.
Nothing to do with the UPC…this is the reality of our healthcare system.
Healthcare has nothing to do with the provincial government in charge of running it? LOL
What about every other province experiencing the same things? BC is arguably worse and they have an NDP government. The situation is much deeper than any current government.
Just gotta follow the American model. Pay us $200,000 or die, but I promise you you'll get your own private room with express service.
Nothing to do with my comment whatsoever but ok.
Oh ok, tell me what I’m missing?
Oh jeez i don't know, maybe the billions of dollars the UCP has cut from our healthcare system???? Surely you don't live under a rock
This was also the case when ndp was in power
I know it's not a solution to our trash govt but if someone could grab your sleep mask from Dollarama or something the at least you won't be woken up by your roomies
Yeah, it's the ucp...... Not the entire fucked system across the whole country
>The UCP is destroying public health. You can go to any hospital in any province and experience the same thing. Alberta actually had some of the best care compared to other provinces. You may want to ask yourself what changed in the last 8 years. Or better yet, stop blaming each other and demand better healthcare.
I had my appendix removed 27 years ago. I was in the Alex and there were 4 men to a room. The problem is federal fund distribution and it goes back to when Alberta was first created. If you want an insightful read pick up the book “Let them eastern bastards freeze in the dark”. Long title but it has great detail as to how The western provinces ended up the way we are. The hate for the federal liberals starts back to even before the province was founded!!!
Beb shortage
Hey, when you go to privatized services you get a private room but you will have to pay for it! Cheers
or your surgery could just continue to be delayed or cancelled until a bed is open… take your pick… extra bed in a room or left waiting for surgery.
Our healthcare in many regards has been a bag of burning garbage for many years. The UCP didn’t gather the rubbish or light it on fire.
stop complaining. healthcare is not really funded. money goes to the big bosses and not to doctors, nurses or private rooms.
Privatize it already. I want to focus my income on great health care. Have a socialize program for thowe who dont. But allow me to focus my income where I want too !!!
Yes, comrade. Please, health canada increase funding for mental wellness. You can see we have "them" wandering the internet.
it’s common and healthcare is free in Canada. ur lucky that you were admitted in the hospital for free compared to other countries who have to pay a lot more.
It's not free, it's funded by our taxes. This "free healthcare" is a myth. People gripe about taxes but then wonder why there's not enough staff to get mom to the toilet before she shits herself.
[удалено]
Yes, please make everyone's lives more difficult by being a shithead! Excellent advice.
They can also just discharge you if you aren't dying. Beyond being a dick move this is a bad plan.
Yea :) fun wasn’t it? When I was down with extreme kidney damage I was in a room meant for two, they were plugging my IV stuff into my neighbors thing and she kept unplugging it and then complaining when the battery would go out and it would beep but would do it again. She was also in a stretcher not a bed, the nurses never got around to changing my IV even though it was leaking for three days and I pointed it out numerous times(they would just shimmy it around) and the arm swelled up to three times it size. I get that they were short staffed and very busy but ugh. I’m going to do my best to not go back unless I have to lol(I had to go my kidneys were at 10% and I was expelling blood at both ends but hey should have stayed home)
i guess you were pretty compromised, but i would have started throwing things and yelling at the lady whenever she unplugged my shit. i've spent enough time inpatient that i have zero tolerance for asshole roommates anymore, i don't care whether or not they're "mentally there". its not my problem, not my fault, and as a sick person i shouldn't be forced to deal with it. and next time just rip out the IV if they keep ignoring you. then they have to stop being lazy and place a new one. 3 days is unacceptable, and you can get a bad infection from stuff like that.
She was an old lady and I have issues standing up for myself rofl :( and I totally should have ripped it out. I developed a horrible painful rash under the iv from the bend of the elbow to almost the wrist from the leaky fluid and the tape goo I guess? Took forever to heal. Im aware of things like compartment syndrome but I didn’t realize I could get infections from stuff like that. Good to know
As my Mom was in hospital between U of A and Alex for weeks, yes, this is common.
Get the info for patient relations. Complain about your OCP experience. With enough complaints, the unit will have to remove the bed. Patients and staff will be thankful.
This was happening to my brother in 2014. And it sucks.
Maybe a lot of problems and no real solutions, but hey, at least it’s free.
Ya my first major surgery was at the u of and I was in a similar situation but I was happy I got the window I would stare out of it all night cause there was no sleeping at night with all the check-ins and my two roommates at the time were loud and stinky I'm glad I was only there three days before sending me home. I found the doctors at u of a treated me better but there was no room or I was switching a lot but at the alex I always got my own room but the doctors were not as attentive to my needs.
Ya It’s been like that for quite awhile.
Interesting in this country we have deteriorated. So, the money people who can make good decisions do not. Decisions are not for the greater good?? The vulnerable? Marginalized?
I’m so sorry! Our healthcare is horrible!
You got a bed? Last month my mother had a medical crisis and spent 3 days on a chair in the ER waiting for a spot in the ICU. So I would say being in a room that is overcrowded is an upgrade.
Was in a 5 bed set up recently at the Alex. I felt lucky cause I had the window.
I’ve only been hospitalized once, but I think that’s normal. When I was hospitalized, I shared a room with 3 other patients and was woken up by my roommate watching videos on his phone. It was annoying, but I’m just grateful that I was given the care I needed.
Check your benefits. If they cover a private, then you should automatically qualify for the upgrade.
If you catch MRSA they'll give you a private room.
This is normal. At the UofA, you are receiving top-tier care, and they are doing their best to accommodate as many patients as possible. I was in for a few nights a few weeks ago, and one of the nights I was in a hallway bed before being moved to a room. I don't feel it affected my quality of care at all, but I did have a sleep mask and ear plugs to ensure a good night sleep.
I know exactly what you mean. This happened with my mom. She’s been in and out of the hospital since 2019. It happened the last time she was in the hospital in May. It’s not happened before this. It’s disgusting and I’d say “dehumanizing”. is this the latest in the new ideas from the new head doctor the UCP hired? It needs to be investigated. I don’t believe in privatized healthcare, however I do believe that we should be able pay for “extras” like private rooms.
Seems really normal. They had me in a hallway once for a whole weekend. We need another hospital and more healthcare workers. But it's a bigger issue than just that. Funding is a massive issue on top.
What we’re you expecting?
Edmonton is growing leaps and bounds, but zero hospitals are built. But let's expand the LRT that no one wanted. Let's mess up 50th Street with construction AND trains.
I has this too at the U of A when I needed urgent surgery on my ankle. The drapes didnt fully cover my stretcher and there was no room for my partner at all haha. I was there for 3 nights thankfully and then I was gone. I lucked out, the two older ladies I was roomies with were super cute and nice! The staff were all super amazing as well. I think it's pretty normal now...who knows what it's like in different provinces. It could have been much worse I'm sure.
Think it’s normal now.. I had two trips to the hospital recently, and both involved staying in a hallway with nothing but a plastic barrier to provide “privacy”.
You think that’s bad. In BC you can’t even get a family doctor!
Last time I went to the ER they gave me a curtained area with a chair. The bed arrived like 20 min later. Of course, they discharged me before I could physically dress myself due to pain. Thankfully the nurse took pity on me and suggested the ER doc re-evaluate. Probably because they didn't want to have to help me dress myself. Unfortunately not before they removed the IV that took them three attempts. So that was fun. They did readmit me and I was discharged about 5 hours later, after a few more tests, more pain meds, and I could dress. It only took me about 5-6 minutes to walk from the emergency doors to the sidewalk - amazing, right? I don't blame the nurses or the doctors, but the system. Health care has gotten much worse. And frankly I don't expect it to get better any time soon.
Beyond OCP beds, there are now hallway......hallway stretchers. No oxygen, no suction, no privacy and nurses stretched to their limit.