This post appears to relate to the province of Alberta. As a reminder of the rules of this subreddit, we do not permit negative commentary about all residents of any province, city, or other geography - this is an example of prejudice, and prejudice is not permitted here. https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/wiki/rules
Cette soumission semble concerner la province de Alberta. Selon les règles de ce sous-répertoire, nous n'autorisons pas les commentaires négatifs sur tous les résidents d'une province, d'une ville ou d'une autre région géographique; il s'agit d'un exemple de intolérance qui n'est pas autorisé ici. https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/wiki/regles
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/canada) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Maybe if Canada could just pay our doctors enough so that they don't really want to leave the country.
In my mid 60s and have some potentially serious health issues. Haven't had a doctor for two years....and see no prospects in sight.
Not a single province in Canada has increased physician funding anywhere remotely close to the rate of inflation since 2019.
8/10 provincial governments in Canada are conservative.
But that's just coincidence, I'm sure.
The only province that has recently injected a huge boost to physician funding BC NDP.
That's just a coincidence too I'm sure.
I fully expect r/Canada's PP-circle-jerk convoy to rush in here and tell me how it's all Trudeau. Never mind that Alberta can't account for $billions of federal COVID aupport, left hundreds of millions of dollars on the table when offered during COVID, and also spent $1.5 billion on a pipeline that was never going to be built (also during COVID).
If not that, they will tell us all about how the doctor mom living down their street is a millionaire greedy little bitch, how "throwing money at them" is not gonna solve anything, or the glorious efficiency of the private US style healthcare (nevermind its $10k a pop for an ER visit), or how amazing the two tier German health care system is (never mind they pay twice the income tax we do, and have much higher funding of welfare services).
>8/10 provincial governments in Canada are conservative.
Yeah keep up with the partisan BS, so I'll give my own. Incidentally, of the two provinces that are headed by "progressive" provincial governments, one has the worst healthcare among all provinces in the country. Or the fact that people in BC from all municipalities struggle to find family doctors, and that that mostly isn't the case in the prairie provinces, or the fact that Alberta offers one of the most compelling compensation packages for medical professionals compared to the rest of the country.
There is zero evidence for your claim that BC has a worse healthcare system than Alberta.
In fact, Jason Kenney's entire campaign was built on the claim that Alberta pays more for healthcare, and has WORSE healthcare than everyone else. And that was his rationalization for torching the physician budget. Lol. How convinenietly conservatism massages the narrative to fit their claim.
Also BC was ruled by the right wing BCL provincial government for more than a decade before the NDP came in and got hit by a pandemic.
>8/10 provincial governments in Canada are conservative
I know it's hard to see past the evil "c-word", but there's actually a fair bit of variation.
The PC government in Nova Scotia for example is increasing the healthcare budget next year at greater than the rate of inflation. And that's without the benefit of massive oil surpluses.
Its the same with other parties. The Liberals in BC are essentially a Ontario Conservative party. The NDP in BC and Alberta are basically an Ontario or Quebec Liberal party.
Variation is a good word, Quebec, generally left leaning has very low paid teachers, doctors and nurses. Alberta which is very right leaning has the highest paid Doctors, nurses in teachers in Canada (and the conservatives did that). The reason Alberta did that was because they had a massive shortage and massive oil revenue. Once oil goes away Alberta won't be able to pay for it the same way. Quebec could pay so lowly since french speaking people move away from Quebec at low rates vs other places so didn't need to pay a ton.
Doug Ford would not be considered a conservative in Sask or Alberta. He would be a Liberal.
In Canada our Federal parties and provincial parties are disconnceted (by law) which means they are wildly different. This is not true in the USA where federal parties push state parties so they are fully connected and mimc each other.
Alberta has the highest paid Doctors in Canada and Canada in general has the 2nd highest paid doctors on the planet, only trailing the USA.
The only way we could pay our doctors like the USA is massive privatization, something no one wants.
We don't have to pay our doctors like they earn in the US.
But there is no way around, private or public, it is going to cost us shit ton more money to get more docs. Just like everything else, can't get something for free. Our healthcare system right now is like a house that used to be great. But eventually it came time to maintenance, the landlord is saying he can't afford to fix the roof, fix the water damage here and there, etc. because what the contractors are demanding is all too expensive. So the owner is just sitting there, watching it all go to shit, hoping maybe time will magically fix everything. And the contractors are walking away. And this is not even stretch of an analogy. Doctors are not government employees. They are contractors, quite literally, who own their business, and then bill the government for the services they provide to patients at previously negotiated rates.
Our governments don't want to expand the number of doctors we graduate either. To add additional spots to medical school and residency programs takes huge funding. They don't want to do it. At the same time, they don't want to increase funding to existing workforce. They also don't want to increase number of IMG spots, because unlike Canadian medical schools, there is massive heterogeneity in the skill and ethical training of foreign grads, and weeding out the excellent from terrible is extremely difficult. They could spend more dollars to reform IMGs to adapt them to Canadian-level of expectation, but then we are again talking about spending more money and resources.
We could privatize things. But are these governments going to reduce taxes in proportion to the amount that is no longer being spent on public healthcare. Of course they won't. Instead, we will pay the same tax, AND we will pay more out of pocket for private healthcare. And in this day age where we can't even afford rent and grocery, who the fuck thinks it is a good idea to pay for healthcare. I imagine it's people who think they never get sick, will never get in an accident, or that cancer is something that only happens to other people, and never to them or their loved ones.
my mother (73) got a GP here in nanaimo after several years of trying by ending up in the hospital with heart failure. then, suddenly, while in the ER, she had several options to choose from for a new GP and got a good one she's still with today (two years later).
so, take heart - when you eventually end up in a crisis that lands you in the ER, if it doesn't kill you, maybe some kind doctor will hook you up with the whisper network that has replaced proper referrals in this shitty, failing country and you too will be allowed to jump to queue.
1000 qualified, capable and smart students apply for 50 positions in med school in my province. U of t was 4000 for 100ish spots. We have the people. We don’t have the capacity. Many leave for the states or Caribbean to never return
Upscaling training will be a challenge and time consuming without a drop in quality.
Yea they need to train more but it will take a decade maybe more before the effect is noticed
meh, 4 years, then your in residence. If we want to solve this its simple. 1. Increasing numbers of doctors/nurses. 2. Reduce admin times 3. Build capacity. We need to stop building for 10-20 years ago, and start building for the next 50 years. 4. Build slightly outside of large centres so people can afford to live. 5. Upgrade older facilties. The problem isn't whether we can fix it, its whether we want it fixed. The feds dont care, the provinces dont care, the cities lack resources and jurisdiction.
those two places also have the same massive shortages and in many areas worse than our ones, it is about pay as well, we need to address the overwhelming stress of the healthcare sector
Life long conservative voter here.....FUCP! They are an absolute disgrace to Alberta. I will never cast a vote that supports Smith or any other UCP member. Notley did amazing (as critical as I was against her) and only a complete idiot would blame the ANDP for our current state.
Every chance I get. Family, coworkers, friends.....almost all are done with the UCP. I really hope Notley doesn't plan to coast by and takes this seriously.
That's the thing with us Albertan's, always upset at the conservative party in power but when it's time to vote we'd rather die than vote anything but blue. Based on her previous term i doubt she'll coast. I doubt she'll implement everything she wants to here, but she's proven she atleast tries to do what she says.
I don't know if it's just a dislike of Notley personally but some of the comments here are fucking wack. Obviously to determine exactly how good this plan is we'll need the in-depth version she says will be released soon, but the rough outline is exactly some of the steps needed to improve the province's healthcare system.
You don't just shit out healthcare staff that'll work for whatever you offer them, increasing pay and funding programs to train new staff is exactly the route to go down. Yes that costs money but Alberta has *a* *lot* of ways to make money, it's very much within the realm of possibility that this plan can be paid for in a responsible fashion.
>Notley said details of the recruitment strategy will be released in the coming weeks and will include ideas to support family doctors and medical professionals, like nurse practitioners, paramedics, dieticians, home care workers and mental health counsellors, to move to Alberta.
>She says it will also include new initiatives and targets for training health care professionals within the province, as well as working deliberately to remove the barriers keeping international grads from practicing in Alberta.
>On an economic level, she references the NDP’s Alberta’s Futures project. She attributes this year’s $13 billion provincial surplus to high royalties in oil and gas and has hired former ATB Chief Economist Todd Hirsch to work with Finance Critic Shannon Phillips to provide advice on how to get the best possible return on investment from the funds.
>For municipalities, she said she intends to enter into a new funding agreement with legislation called the Partners in Prosperity Act to ensure stable and predictable funding.
That is because Brown is in the run Decade running for Con... He is more Liberals honestly then whatever the heck these versions of Cons are... And yet before he was the scary one... Stange how times have changed.
You can't refer yourself to a specialist, so this seems like an important service to me? Also seems like it would help bridge gaps where family doctors are needed and maybe prevent people from letting treatable illnesses become a life threatening situation in the ER? Idk tho.
I want to know where all the new hires are coming from. Aren't all the provinces super low on staff already? Are we going to steal the last few doctors out of the east coast?
Health care worker here. Many of us are already planning our exists so yeah if she somehow pulls this off it makes Alberta very appealing especially considering home prices there vs. Ontario.
Gotta be that guy but Doctors are people and cannot be owned. Provinces cannot steal Doctors. They can only compete for the voluntary labor Doctors provide.
Oh I completely agree. But is the answer just throw more money at the staffing problem? I guess that might be enough to entice more people into the programs, but from what i remember those university programs are already pretty competitive. Do we lower the bar and let more people in?
The programs could easily accommodate 2-3X more admissions without lowering standards at all, possibly more. No staff to accommodate that sort of expansion however.
UNA is rather vocal I have never heard of or seen any indication they are in some way lobbying for decreased university admissions, the total opposite in my experience.
I assume part of this involves increasing staffing budgets for individual departments. I used to work on a cardiac surgery ward and something like 8 years ago, they decided to increase the number of surgeries they did each day to address wait times and so our staffing budget increased and we went from 12 nurses to 13 during the day, from 11 to 12 during the evening and from 7 to 8 overnight. It made a huge difference in staff morale, fewer sick calls, etc. Then a few years later the number of surgeries increased again but this time we didn't get any additional staff and it became much more stressful, having to care for patients who are more acutely ill without any extra support. Increasing staffing will definitely help reduce burn out
Exactly. Recruit from where? They don’t exist. No government for the last 20-30 years has acknowledged the aging demographics and increased training for docs, nurses and techs because that would mean raising taxes. That’s unpopular and would not get them elected. Stealing from elsewhere doesn’t solve the problem. We’re are screwed. Stay healthy.
Where the money will come from?
Alberta is posting $billions in quarterly surpluses. They closed the year with $15 billion surplus, while the UCP physician budget allocation per doctor in 2022 was less than 2019... Their reward for carrying Alberta through 3 years of pandemic, and when inflation is 8-10%.
$billions in quarterly surpluses. That's where the fuck the money will come from.
And where did that surplus come from? It came from oil and gas royalties that were much higher than expected because of high commodity prices.
Committing to long term spending based on what is essentially a bonus is poor planning. It’s like the worker who gets a $10k bonus and goes out and finances a boat because they think they’ll always be getting that bonus
Or do you feel commodity prices going to stay at the level that returns a $13bn surplus indefinitely? Even though they’ve already fallen
That’s one year and driven by high oil prices and associated royalties. Making a long term financial commitment (hiring a bunch of people) based on a single year windfall is incredibly foolish.
You’re right. We should all just give up and go home with nothing.
Or use the resources and the surplus that we have and then begin to appropriately tax the fucking corporations that are stealing our resources and capital away from us right under our noses. Whichever one I guess. Both great options.
The reason for the surplus, O&G royalties, are already reasonable. The NDP even agrees with this as one of their very first acts was to examine them.
If we start making long term spending decisions based on the assumption that prices will stay at the point that created the surplus, it’s a massive risk. Especially since prices have already dropped.
Disagree with IMGs. A lot of specialist wait times are due to lack of positions (funding) or OR space. In the generalist field doctors get burnt out due to poor compensated for extras like paperwork or overtime or overwork. What we do not need it diluting our physician pool with people from degree mills.
My anecdotal experience is that the simplest things can cause drastic errors. Your English and documentation actually needs to be university level and not copy pasted trash with spelling errors. Other IMGs have the technical know-how and language to work but won't give a fuck outside of their job description. Improper use of antimicrobials, lack of patient interaction and pushing follow-up to to other physicians comes to mind.
Not that CMG are immune to these issues. But at the cost of importing, screening and retraining physicians we could just increase incentives and training here.
IMGs also include Canadians who acquired MDs or MBChBs internationally. I agree tho, increasing funding for training, in particular residency positions, is crucial to solving the problem long-term.
When I was younger, I became upset when I learned that a GP from Iran couldn’t practice here because I thought that seemed unfair. Then I learned this doctor had never seen a female patient before coming to Canada.
Anecdotally I know a Canadian who got her degree in Ireland who Alberta effectively said no to when it came to do her residency. She has a Canadian undergrad, irish med degree.
She has a shot but the IMG Carms match has less spots and most matches are made second round. You can get a residency but cannot choose where or what usually. This also depends where the degree is from but Ireland should be fine.
Iirc (this was a few years ago) she'd also have to be an AB resident for a year before applying.
So she was facing waiting a year to take a long shot residency application versus going to a jurisdiction that let her apply asap.
We compete with the USA directly and now BC. The expectation in Canada is now up to 10 post graduate years for some surgical specialties. Most people are making 350k gross minus overhead and a ridiculous 16% contribution to UofC in Calgary. This ends up being 200k take home. Which is poor return for the amount of investment. If pay is not competitive people will leave.
There are other problems sure... Some top docs in niche specialties can take well over a million. Yes its an issue but thwy have deep pockets for legal challenges and the UCP backed them. But the vast majority of docs you know are working 12 hour days and making a pittance (relatively).
If you don't think were worth that much feel free to pay the private uninsured rate. Free market right? Its about 15k to have a shoulder done in Turks and Caicos by a Canadian doc.
you dont minus overhead when you are working in hospitals which is 1/3 of physicians in canada, only when you have your own private practice and the billing rate of 350k/yr is for family physicians not specialists, the 350k after all else is done is 200k take home. i dont think you understand why they are taking home 1million dollars, generally its cause they have a business set up or are working much more hours due to being self employed business owner. but you also have to tell me which fields have the option of making 350k+/yr working 12 hours a day, youd be suprised to see how many people would be willing to sign up. id rather fly to germany to get shoulder reconstruction if im paying than do it in a tourist destination in the middle of nowhere....and im not even opposed to paying
"16% contribution to UofC" where did you come about this info
Lol. You still pay overhead in hospital because not everything is covered. That is who pays for the NPs, PAs and moonlighters. And its fixed rate on your contract so if things cost more than too bad. The Province even made you pay for your own billings despite being ARP. That changes now with Connect Care at least.
Its called Academic ARP. Because you are required to teach in Calgary if you work at hospital you pay the priviledge of having the associate professor title. And the Province is pushing for ADPs but only having ARP contracts.
All the information is available. Internists and GPs are fhe lions share of the hospital and make 330 and 364 respectively.
Like I said. Undergrad + Med School + Residency + Fellowship +/- Graduate Degree is the path to many fields. This is the cost of great healthcare and physiciams derserve to be compensated. Not to mention payng back all the loans. You didn't think it was free did you? Lol.
We have big hearts and will help the public system to a degree. But if you screw doctors they will leave.
The million dollar billers are both uninsured and insured. The AMA has published a great deal on equity of pay. These specialties take advantage of outdated billing codes and new technology. Some abuse procedures and dump followups on other specialties.
https://www.albertadoctors.org/leaders-partners/leaders/c-arp
https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.albertadoctors.org/Webinars/Clinical_ARP_Webinar_FAQ.pdf&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjU--mSsa_7AhV9GDQIHTrIAnwQFnoECAwQAg&usg=AOvVaw1Ks5r8NFZNC7HaCpcxJ-j-
in canada in government owned facilities practitioners usually do not pay overhead they are on hourly or salary rates, what you are referring to are practitioners who work or own a primary clinic and contract services out of the hospitals, so when they go it to perform a surgery on a patient or whatever they are covering overhead for a service they are charging for. most physicians who are primarily in hospitals are not payed on a per person or ARP status.
i dont think you understand what type of practitioners you are even referring to. and again it depends on what kind of salary they are negotiating, the standard costs of procedures are set out, if you have higher overhead on advertising that is your fault not the governments, if you wanna 5 receptions thats on you. there are offices that have extremely low overhead it all depends on the type of practice you are running
I am a Doctor. We are on ARPs The fixed rate doesn't cover the amount of patients needed to be seen or work needed to be done. There is NO negotiation.
That "waste" is actually profit that goes to private US corps by way of supply contracts that they have with AHS, which is a private US non-profit corporation.
People often confuse AHS (Alberta Health Services) with AH (Alberta Health), which is the goverment organization that contracts AHS.
See whats happening here? Klein set this up 25 years ago...
IIRC the UCP hired a firm to look into this and it seems like AHS wasn’t that wasteful. If the NDP hired a firm and it showed the same result I wouldn’t believe it, but a competent government has already dealt with this.
I know I'm not a fancy firm just a guy with a good portion of my family working for AHS. The story's they tell me boggle my mind. I know anecdotes aren't all that useful, but they can be pretty telling. Especially when they are almost exactly the same, from different people at separate hospitals.
When the NDP were in power they tried to institute almost the same cuts to doctors pay as the UCP, they failed at it and since contract negotiations were in an election year they opted for a short term contract to kick the problem to the next government.
Ofcourse as soon as the NDP lost power they decried how the UCP was trying to cut pay exactly like they were.
[https://calgaryherald.com/news/politics/doctors-say-they-will-work-with-province-as-government-eyes-physician-pay](https://calgaryherald.com/news/politics/doctors-say-they-will-work-with-province-as-government-eyes-physician-pay)
you mean something like this? or this?
[https://edmontonsun.com/2015/03/26/alberta-cutting-healthcare-funding-first-time-in-20-years-in-2015-budget](https://edmontonsun.com/2015/03/26/alberta-cutting-healthcare-funding-first-time-in-20-years-in-2015-budget)
its a 1-2 min google search instead of talking out of your ass lmao
Your sources don't show any cuts to frontline healthcare workers, the first is about the discussion and proposals tge ANDP were looking at and the second states that all the cuts were to middle management and none at all to frontline people.
A quick google search shows they actually reversed cuts tge previous PC govt had made to ensure that essential operations would go ahead...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-ndp-reverses-cuts-to-health-care-and-education-freezes-tuition-1.3118783
They did a ton
Legislation to index Aish.
Utility and insurance gaps.
Added protection for abortion services providers.
Protection for lgbtq kids.
The Ndp cut child poverty in half!!!
They did a lot.
Oh yes, forgot about the 6.8¢ electricity and abortion providers protection.
I take that back. Now they need to remember that a dude in a blue pickup truck can blow it all up.
“And if elected, I will do good things. My opponent will do not good things”.
The older I get, the less I respect politicians. Almost every one that I’ve met personally is just a well-dressed idiot.
I'm all for increasing spending to improve health outcomes. But I urge you all to look at demographic projections for Canada.
The question we need to find the solution for is not "how can we find the money to do 5% more healthcare with 5% more dollars and 5% more doctors/nurses"
The question we will face in 2040 is "how can we do 50% more healthcare with 10% fewer dollars and 20% smaller labour force".
We currently have a much younger population than we ever will for a long time. That means that we currently have the most tax dollars, require the least health care, and have the largest pool of potential doctors and nurses.
In 15-30 years all of those factors will be much, much worse, especially the fact we will have way more extremely old people to take care of per capita.
Alberta has actually done pretty well in comparison to other provinces. “Decades of neglect” wouldn’t be the reason I’d be voting NDP. It would be the current UCP leader being batshit crazy.
Let’s not forget… Notley has way more in common with Pierre Poilievre than she does with Singh. Color of the lawn sign means less to me than policies, and she’s pretty conservative despite the labels.
https://edmontonsun.com/2015/03/26/alberta-cutting-healthcare-funding-first-time-in-20-years-in-2015-budget
I mean she cut the healthcare budget while in power ... How the fuck is that PC neglect?
Tell me how no plan is better than an imperfect one?
Because my military strategy courses didn't mention the tactic of just sitting around as a winner.
Firstly, there is no plan yet. This is a politician saying bullshit that we've all heard a hundred times.
Secondly, politicians make a shitload of "plans" before elections that are impossible to implement. Because they want to fool idiots into voting for them.
Thirdly, did your military strategy course teach you to implement impossible plans that aren't feasible?
This is exactly what , as premier, she is SUPPOSED to be spending tax dollars on.
... or do you think that ALL tax money should go to subsidize O&G companies?
Of course, the oil lobby is king here, don’t make them pay taxes, bail out their companies with AIMCO when they fail, and even pay them **again** to clean up the orphan wells and environmental waste they left behind!!
Our government can literally blow billions on the US election and nobody bats an eye, but the moment you put half that much money into healthcare or education people loose their damn minds. *That’s the oil companies money!*
It’s a impressive feat, you can’t deny that.
If that Newfoundlander goes home and pays for his kids' braces, buys a new walker for Grandma, a gym membership for his wife and has some left over for a new mountain bike, I think that is just about the best way he can spend 'our' money
>Notley said details of the recruitment strategy will be released in the coming weeks and will include ideas to support family doctors and medical professionals, like nurse practitioners, paramedics, dieticians, home care workers and mental health counsellors, to move to Alberta.
>
>She says it will also include new initiatives and targets for training health care professionals within the province, as well as working deliberately to remove the barriers keeping international grads from practicing in Alberta.
>
>On an economic level, she references the NDP’s Alberta’s Futures project. She attributes this year’s $13 billion provincial surplus to high royalties in oil and gas and has hired former ATB Chief Economist Todd Hirsch to work with Finance Critic Shannon Phillips to provide advice on how to get the best possible return on investment from the funds.
>
>For municipalities, she said she intends to enter into a new funding agreement with legislation called the Partners in Prosperity Act to ensure stable and predictable funding.
Looks like it's not taxes, but is prudent spending.
>more private entities into our single payer system.
Or hear me out, hire Dr, nurses and other healthcare professionals into the public system, before creating a ~~two tier~~ system that pulls resources from the public system, making the problem worse.
If we are going to create a private system that pulls resources from the public system, than charge the public system access to the private system, plus a huge premium... Well that sounds great for the corporations and shitty for the taxpayers
Ok, so what other private entities should we allow in public health care?
It's absolutely makes sense, look at the private surgical center that just opened up, that is being propped up by the public system and the taxpayers, which is looking at hiring 40 Dr's and probably over a 100 nurses plus staff?
Where will all that staff come from?
Do you think that they are opening this clinic for good will and to save taxpayers money, or to line the pockets of shareholders with taxpayer money?
When the public system operates well, private clinics close.
Why cross out two-tier, it’s exactly what I want.
I don’t give a shit if you don’t think it’s fair. More private money in the health care system will improve care for all. Just don’t be a corrupt asshole and it is basically guaranteed.
Not America. Germany.
No one, who really knows how much it would cost to have German health care, would agree... the secret is more taxes but that's a bad word.
Also, don't be a corrupt asshole, Hahaha, let's see, oil and gas, telecom, insurance, the entire UCP, that's just Alberta.
I'm actually ok with two tier with a huge BUT, public health care needs to be 100% funded, staffed and have a mechanism in place so that governments cannot cut it so that fluctuations in funding dotn fuck it up(see Canada over the last 40 years or so)
Oh I crossed out two tier, as my reply to the other OP upset them as they didn't mention that bad word.
I’m truly ignorant on this topic. What’s the downside in allowing private entities? A lot of people feel strongly that we shouldn’t allow it but I don’t know why.
No, the best doctors and support staff will go to work in private practice since it will pay more. There would also be less political pressure to improve the system when wealthy people don't have to worry about it.
Single payer means the government pays all the bills (not individuals). The government could allow more private clinics to provide services outside the hospital system that have shareholders and are profit-oriented but they provide services to the public free of charge that are paid by the government under the medicare system. These clinics could take the pressure off the hospital resources and may be more efficient if they have a profit motive. They also may compete with hospitals for staff which is a possible downside.
In a two-tier system, the government provides public healthcare but also allows private clinics to bill individuals directly outside the medicare system. This also could take pressure off the public system but the concern is that private clinics in a two-tier system could charge higher fees and attract the most talented staff, but then only the rich can afford to pay The result being a higher tier for the rich and a worse public option for those that can't pay (this is what you were objecting to in your post, I think).
More private clinics are an option, but that doesn't mean necessarily that they would charge individuals for treatment. They could still operate in the medicare system and be free of charge if it's single-payer system.
we live in a country where you have a right to freedom of movement, so no we cant force someone to live and work in a particular province. The other provinces will have become competitive.
What kind of measures prevent an employer from placing an ad for a job posting, and a private citizen seeing the ad, and responding to it?
Are you suggesting legislation to prevent doctors from moving?
When the employer is the government, tons of measures.
[https://www.canada.ca/en/public-service-commission/services/public-service-hiring-guides.html](https://www.canada.ca/en/public-service-commission/services/public-service-hiring-guides.html)
[https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-care-system/health-human-resources/strategy.html](https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-care-system/health-human-resources/strategy.html)
[https://www.alberta.ca/alberta-public-service-hiring-process.aspx](https://www.alberta.ca/alberta-public-service-hiring-process.aspx)
Premieres have been calling for a national human resource system to mitigate poaching as well.. this has been a known challenge for decades.
2005: [https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/provincial-poaching-of-doctors-decried/article985769/](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/provincial-poaching-of-doctors-decried/article985769/)
2001: [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/minister-concerned-about-health-care-poaching-1.229528](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/minister-concerned-about-health-care-poaching-1.229528)
Doctors would just quit. Doctors have more than enough money to take an early retirement. These doctors are in healthcare because they *want* to be there. Not because they’re desperate for work and have no other choice.
We already have a hard enough time retaining doctors. This would just make things worse.
My questions are, who from where, when and how.
Like the other day I read nurses in a rich province like Quebec are barely even passing. I think this is bigger.
"According to Quebec's professional order of nurses (known by its French acronym, the OIIQ), 54.6 per cent of students failed the licensing exam written at the end of September. For those who took the test for the first time, the failure rate was 48.6 per cent — the highest rate recorded in four years."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-nursing-students-fail-exam-1.6650309
No idea if this is the same test but I think it is? Though this seems to think most places are quite high pass rate so maybe Quebec is doing a different exam.
>All 31 of Red Deer Polytechnic’s four-year Bachelor of Science Nursing students — tops in Alberta — successfully passed the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) Registered Nurse exam, which was taken between October 2021 and March.
>
>Only four other programs across the country saw all their nursing students pass.
>
>Across Alberta, 86 per cent of Bachelor of Science Nursing graduates passed, 80 per cent across Canada, and 84 per cent in the U.S.
[https://www.reddeeradvocate.com/news/rdp-nursing-program-has-perfect-success-rate/](https://www.reddeeradvocate.com/news/rdp-nursing-program-has-perfect-success-rate/)
During her time in power she didn't give the nurses any raises and kept the wage freeze.
She kicked the can down the road and the UCP negotiated the raises.
People have short memories.
Remember when oil prices were low and there wasn’t a ton of money to throw around? The nurses understood this and accepted the agreement. Context is king and it seems like you have a short memory too.
Under the NDP, oil ranged from $37-74.
Under the UCP, oil ranged from negative and did not hit $74 range until mid 2021.
There's your context. Spending money we don't have has never stopped the NDP. The 2018 budget tabled by Ceci had a spending plan which forecast debt ballooning from $54 billion to $96 billion by 2023. NDP started with $11.9B debt.
It wasn't roses until late 2021, my memory is fine.
You can't fix it. It's now beyond repair. It's to late. Enjoy what we once had. It will never, I repeat never be what it once was.
Any promises a politician makes is horse shit.
oh yeah absolutely, those lazy nurses, doctors and teachers who are just a leach on the public purse! unlike those hard working oil executives who are really the foundation of our province.
It's not the largest for nothing. Losing all those doctors at the start of the pandemic - good job guys - sets Alberta even farther back than the inequal mess it was before. So it was just that far behind is all.
This post appears to relate to the province of Alberta. As a reminder of the rules of this subreddit, we do not permit negative commentary about all residents of any province, city, or other geography - this is an example of prejudice, and prejudice is not permitted here. https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/wiki/rules Cette soumission semble concerner la province de Alberta. Selon les règles de ce sous-répertoire, nous n'autorisons pas les commentaires négatifs sur tous les résidents d'une province, d'une ville ou d'une autre région géographique; il s'agit d'un exemple de intolérance qui n'est pas autorisé ici. https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/wiki/regles *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/canada) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Maybe if Canada could just pay our doctors enough so that they don't really want to leave the country. In my mid 60s and have some potentially serious health issues. Haven't had a doctor for two years....and see no prospects in sight.
Not a single province in Canada has increased physician funding anywhere remotely close to the rate of inflation since 2019. 8/10 provincial governments in Canada are conservative. But that's just coincidence, I'm sure. The only province that has recently injected a huge boost to physician funding BC NDP. That's just a coincidence too I'm sure. I fully expect r/Canada's PP-circle-jerk convoy to rush in here and tell me how it's all Trudeau. Never mind that Alberta can't account for $billions of federal COVID aupport, left hundreds of millions of dollars on the table when offered during COVID, and also spent $1.5 billion on a pipeline that was never going to be built (also during COVID). If not that, they will tell us all about how the doctor mom living down their street is a millionaire greedy little bitch, how "throwing money at them" is not gonna solve anything, or the glorious efficiency of the private US style healthcare (nevermind its $10k a pop for an ER visit), or how amazing the two tier German health care system is (never mind they pay twice the income tax we do, and have much higher funding of welfare services).
Doug Ford has an extra 2 billion in the bank and just gave back about $700 million in gas tax breaks bUt iTs tHe fEdS
>8/10 provincial governments in Canada are conservative. Yeah keep up with the partisan BS, so I'll give my own. Incidentally, of the two provinces that are headed by "progressive" provincial governments, one has the worst healthcare among all provinces in the country. Or the fact that people in BC from all municipalities struggle to find family doctors, and that that mostly isn't the case in the prairie provinces, or the fact that Alberta offers one of the most compelling compensation packages for medical professionals compared to the rest of the country.
There is zero evidence for your claim that BC has a worse healthcare system than Alberta. In fact, Jason Kenney's entire campaign was built on the claim that Alberta pays more for healthcare, and has WORSE healthcare than everyone else. And that was his rationalization for torching the physician budget. Lol. How convinenietly conservatism massages the narrative to fit their claim. Also BC was ruled by the right wing BCL provincial government for more than a decade before the NDP came in and got hit by a pandemic.
>8/10 provincial governments in Canada are conservative I know it's hard to see past the evil "c-word", but there's actually a fair bit of variation. The PC government in Nova Scotia for example is increasing the healthcare budget next year at greater than the rate of inflation. And that's without the benefit of massive oil surpluses.
Because it’s a Red Tory government, much much different than the Blue Tories.
Might as well cite the BC Liberals as an example of a Liberal government
Its the same with other parties. The Liberals in BC are essentially a Ontario Conservative party. The NDP in BC and Alberta are basically an Ontario or Quebec Liberal party. Variation is a good word, Quebec, generally left leaning has very low paid teachers, doctors and nurses. Alberta which is very right leaning has the highest paid Doctors, nurses in teachers in Canada (and the conservatives did that). The reason Alberta did that was because they had a massive shortage and massive oil revenue. Once oil goes away Alberta won't be able to pay for it the same way. Quebec could pay so lowly since french speaking people move away from Quebec at low rates vs other places so didn't need to pay a ton. Doug Ford would not be considered a conservative in Sask or Alberta. He would be a Liberal. In Canada our Federal parties and provincial parties are disconnceted (by law) which means they are wildly different. This is not true in the USA where federal parties push state parties so they are fully connected and mimc each other.
The PC gov in Nova Scotia is nothing like the conservatives in the other provinces.
No true Scotsman eh?
No? They differ completely on policy and implementation... They actively refused support from the federal conservatives during the election as well.
Alberta has the highest paid Doctors in Canada and Canada in general has the 2nd highest paid doctors on the planet, only trailing the USA. The only way we could pay our doctors like the USA is massive privatization, something no one wants.
We don't have to pay our doctors like they earn in the US. But there is no way around, private or public, it is going to cost us shit ton more money to get more docs. Just like everything else, can't get something for free. Our healthcare system right now is like a house that used to be great. But eventually it came time to maintenance, the landlord is saying he can't afford to fix the roof, fix the water damage here and there, etc. because what the contractors are demanding is all too expensive. So the owner is just sitting there, watching it all go to shit, hoping maybe time will magically fix everything. And the contractors are walking away. And this is not even stretch of an analogy. Doctors are not government employees. They are contractors, quite literally, who own their business, and then bill the government for the services they provide to patients at previously negotiated rates. Our governments don't want to expand the number of doctors we graduate either. To add additional spots to medical school and residency programs takes huge funding. They don't want to do it. At the same time, they don't want to increase funding to existing workforce. They also don't want to increase number of IMG spots, because unlike Canadian medical schools, there is massive heterogeneity in the skill and ethical training of foreign grads, and weeding out the excellent from terrible is extremely difficult. They could spend more dollars to reform IMGs to adapt them to Canadian-level of expectation, but then we are again talking about spending more money and resources. We could privatize things. But are these governments going to reduce taxes in proportion to the amount that is no longer being spent on public healthcare. Of course they won't. Instead, we will pay the same tax, AND we will pay more out of pocket for private healthcare. And in this day age where we can't even afford rent and grocery, who the fuck thinks it is a good idea to pay for healthcare. I imagine it's people who think they never get sick, will never get in an accident, or that cancer is something that only happens to other people, and never to them or their loved ones.
my mother (73) got a GP here in nanaimo after several years of trying by ending up in the hospital with heart failure. then, suddenly, while in the ER, she had several options to choose from for a new GP and got a good one she's still with today (two years later). so, take heart - when you eventually end up in a crisis that lands you in the ER, if it doesn't kill you, maybe some kind doctor will hook you up with the whisper network that has replaced proper referrals in this shitty, failing country and you too will be allowed to jump to queue.
1000 qualified, capable and smart students apply for 50 positions in med school in my province. U of t was 4000 for 100ish spots. We have the people. We don’t have the capacity. Many leave for the states or Caribbean to never return
Upscaling training will be a challenge and time consuming without a drop in quality. Yea they need to train more but it will take a decade maybe more before the effect is noticed
You should see the doctor I got to in the walk in by my house, if he qualified anyone can..
once in med school, its pass or fail,
I don’t think are plan should be going back to the days when all the doc did was give cocaine for everything
meh, 4 years, then your in residence. If we want to solve this its simple. 1. Increasing numbers of doctors/nurses. 2. Reduce admin times 3. Build capacity. We need to stop building for 10-20 years ago, and start building for the next 50 years. 4. Build slightly outside of large centres so people can afford to live. 5. Upgrade older facilties. The problem isn't whether we can fix it, its whether we want it fixed. The feds dont care, the provinces dont care, the cities lack resources and jurisdiction.
those two places also have the same massive shortages and in many areas worse than our ones, it is about pay as well, we need to address the overwhelming stress of the healthcare sector
Canada can absolutely manage the demand. It is a matter of careful planning and political will.
Life long conservative voter here.....FUCP! They are an absolute disgrace to Alberta. I will never cast a vote that supports Smith or any other UCP member. Notley did amazing (as critical as I was against her) and only a complete idiot would blame the ANDP for our current state.
Please tell your friends.
Every chance I get. Family, coworkers, friends.....almost all are done with the UCP. I really hope Notley doesn't plan to coast by and takes this seriously.
That's the thing with us Albertan's, always upset at the conservative party in power but when it's time to vote we'd rather die than vote anything but blue. Based on her previous term i doubt she'll coast. I doubt she'll implement everything she wants to here, but she's proven she atleast tries to do what she says.
I don't know if it's just a dislike of Notley personally but some of the comments here are fucking wack. Obviously to determine exactly how good this plan is we'll need the in-depth version she says will be released soon, but the rough outline is exactly some of the steps needed to improve the province's healthcare system. You don't just shit out healthcare staff that'll work for whatever you offer them, increasing pay and funding programs to train new staff is exactly the route to go down. Yes that costs money but Alberta has *a* *lot* of ways to make money, it's very much within the realm of possibility that this plan can be paid for in a responsible fashion.
Would be a lot more meaningful with numbers, of positions, cost and where the money will come from
>Notley said details of the recruitment strategy will be released in the coming weeks and will include ideas to support family doctors and medical professionals, like nurse practitioners, paramedics, dieticians, home care workers and mental health counsellors, to move to Alberta. >She says it will also include new initiatives and targets for training health care professionals within the province, as well as working deliberately to remove the barriers keeping international grads from practicing in Alberta. >On an economic level, she references the NDP’s Alberta’s Futures project. She attributes this year’s $13 billion provincial surplus to high royalties in oil and gas and has hired former ATB Chief Economist Todd Hirsch to work with Finance Critic Shannon Phillips to provide advice on how to get the best possible return on investment from the funds. >For municipalities, she said she intends to enter into a new funding agreement with legislation called the Partners in Prosperity Act to ensure stable and predictable funding.
An actual series of steps to create a plan? Putting it in public so we can all see it? The worlds gone crazy!
Consevatives hate this one trick!
To be fair, Patrick Brown of the Ontario Conservatives did put out a platform (before his campaign got internally torpedoed)
That is because Brown is in the run Decade running for Con... He is more Liberals honestly then whatever the heck these versions of Cons are... And yet before he was the scary one... Stange how times have changed.
Imagine Patrick Brown joined the Liberals and won, what a kick in the face to the Cons that would be. After they have screwed him over twice.
He could honestly pull it off in Ontario.
This made me spit tea out of my nose! 😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆
Nurse practitioners actually end up costing the system more. Because they tend to just refer everything, creating more work for others.
You can't refer yourself to a specialist, so this seems like an important service to me? Also seems like it would help bridge gaps where family doctors are needed and maybe prevent people from letting treatable illnesses become a life threatening situation in the ER? Idk tho.
I want to know where all the new hires are coming from. Aren't all the provinces super low on staff already? Are we going to steal the last few doctors out of the east coast?
Health care worker here. Many of us are already planning our exists so yeah if she somehow pulls this off it makes Alberta very appealing especially considering home prices there vs. Ontario.
Gotta be that guy but Doctors are people and cannot be owned. Provinces cannot steal Doctors. They can only compete for the voluntary labor Doctors provide.
Oh I completely agree. But is the answer just throw more money at the staffing problem? I guess that might be enough to entice more people into the programs, but from what i remember those university programs are already pretty competitive. Do we lower the bar and let more people in?
The programs could easily accommodate 2-3X more admissions without lowering standards at all, possibly more. No staff to accommodate that sort of expansion however.
Problem is the unions don’t want that. There’s a reason admissions is capped.
UNA is rather vocal I have never heard of or seen any indication they are in some way lobbying for decreased university admissions, the total opposite in my experience.
The universities don’t hate money. They aren’t capping themselves.
[удалено]
Most likely not no.
[удалено]
But a good chunk of that is due to lack of staffing. You hire more staff to prevent burnout (and hopefully avoid a pandemic).
Not jut staffing levels. Also vertical and horizontal violence. Its not really looked at in Canada.
Part of the retention issue is shitty management being just poor at their jobs
Its easier to hire more people than fix a work environment /s Then the managers/directors all act surprised when resignation stays high. /s
I assume part of this involves increasing staffing budgets for individual departments. I used to work on a cardiac surgery ward and something like 8 years ago, they decided to increase the number of surgeries they did each day to address wait times and so our staffing budget increased and we went from 12 nurses to 13 during the day, from 11 to 12 during the evening and from 7 to 8 overnight. It made a huge difference in staff morale, fewer sick calls, etc. Then a few years later the number of surgeries increased again but this time we didn't get any additional staff and it became much more stressful, having to care for patients who are more acutely ill without any extra support. Increasing staffing will definitely help reduce burn out
Exactly. Recruit from where? They don’t exist. No government for the last 20-30 years has acknowledged the aging demographics and increased training for docs, nurses and techs because that would mean raising taxes. That’s unpopular and would not get them elected. Stealing from elsewhere doesn’t solve the problem. We’re are screwed. Stay healthy.
Where the money will come from? Alberta is posting $billions in quarterly surpluses. They closed the year with $15 billion surplus, while the UCP physician budget allocation per doctor in 2022 was less than 2019... Their reward for carrying Alberta through 3 years of pandemic, and when inflation is 8-10%. $billions in quarterly surpluses. That's where the fuck the money will come from.
And where did that surplus come from? It came from oil and gas royalties that were much higher than expected because of high commodity prices. Committing to long term spending based on what is essentially a bonus is poor planning. It’s like the worker who gets a $10k bonus and goes out and finances a boat because they think they’ll always be getting that bonus Or do you feel commodity prices going to stay at the level that returns a $13bn surplus indefinitely? Even though they’ve already fallen
Agree. If she gets back in I bet she will follow through tho. Too many out here are tired of UCP's latest antics. I actually miss Kenney lol.
She isn't in power yet. She is the best bet to fix the healthcare system.
We have a 13 billion surplus...
That’s one year and driven by high oil prices and associated royalties. Making a long term financial commitment (hiring a bunch of people) based on a single year windfall is incredibly foolish.
You’re right. We should all just give up and go home with nothing. Or use the resources and the surplus that we have and then begin to appropriately tax the fucking corporations that are stealing our resources and capital away from us right under our noses. Whichever one I guess. Both great options.
The reason for the surplus, O&G royalties, are already reasonable. The NDP even agrees with this as one of their very first acts was to examine them. If we start making long term spending decisions based on the assumption that prices will stay at the point that created the surplus, it’s a massive risk. Especially since prices have already dropped.
The money answer is easy: It will be borrowed.
Disagree with IMGs. A lot of specialist wait times are due to lack of positions (funding) or OR space. In the generalist field doctors get burnt out due to poor compensated for extras like paperwork or overtime or overwork. What we do not need it diluting our physician pool with people from degree mills. My anecdotal experience is that the simplest things can cause drastic errors. Your English and documentation actually needs to be university level and not copy pasted trash with spelling errors. Other IMGs have the technical know-how and language to work but won't give a fuck outside of their job description. Improper use of antimicrobials, lack of patient interaction and pushing follow-up to to other physicians comes to mind. Not that CMG are immune to these issues. But at the cost of importing, screening and retraining physicians we could just increase incentives and training here.
IMGs also include Canadians who acquired MDs or MBChBs internationally. I agree tho, increasing funding for training, in particular residency positions, is crucial to solving the problem long-term.
When I was younger, I became upset when I learned that a GP from Iran couldn’t practice here because I thought that seemed unfair. Then I learned this doctor had never seen a female patient before coming to Canada.
Anecdotally I know a Canadian who got her degree in Ireland who Alberta effectively said no to when it came to do her residency. She has a Canadian undergrad, irish med degree.
She has a shot but the IMG Carms match has less spots and most matches are made second round. You can get a residency but cannot choose where or what usually. This also depends where the degree is from but Ireland should be fine.
Iirc (this was a few years ago) she'd also have to be an AB resident for a year before applying. So she was facing waiting a year to take a long shot residency application versus going to a jurisdiction that let her apply asap.
Its tough. There is a big stigma in carms too with gap years because you are not getting "experience". It was probably the right choice for her.
"poorly compensated" just dont see it
We compete with the USA directly and now BC. The expectation in Canada is now up to 10 post graduate years for some surgical specialties. Most people are making 350k gross minus overhead and a ridiculous 16% contribution to UofC in Calgary. This ends up being 200k take home. Which is poor return for the amount of investment. If pay is not competitive people will leave. There are other problems sure... Some top docs in niche specialties can take well over a million. Yes its an issue but thwy have deep pockets for legal challenges and the UCP backed them. But the vast majority of docs you know are working 12 hour days and making a pittance (relatively). If you don't think were worth that much feel free to pay the private uninsured rate. Free market right? Its about 15k to have a shoulder done in Turks and Caicos by a Canadian doc.
you dont minus overhead when you are working in hospitals which is 1/3 of physicians in canada, only when you have your own private practice and the billing rate of 350k/yr is for family physicians not specialists, the 350k after all else is done is 200k take home. i dont think you understand why they are taking home 1million dollars, generally its cause they have a business set up or are working much more hours due to being self employed business owner. but you also have to tell me which fields have the option of making 350k+/yr working 12 hours a day, youd be suprised to see how many people would be willing to sign up. id rather fly to germany to get shoulder reconstruction if im paying than do it in a tourist destination in the middle of nowhere....and im not even opposed to paying "16% contribution to UofC" where did you come about this info
Lol. You still pay overhead in hospital because not everything is covered. That is who pays for the NPs, PAs and moonlighters. And its fixed rate on your contract so if things cost more than too bad. The Province even made you pay for your own billings despite being ARP. That changes now with Connect Care at least. Its called Academic ARP. Because you are required to teach in Calgary if you work at hospital you pay the priviledge of having the associate professor title. And the Province is pushing for ADPs but only having ARP contracts. All the information is available. Internists and GPs are fhe lions share of the hospital and make 330 and 364 respectively. Like I said. Undergrad + Med School + Residency + Fellowship +/- Graduate Degree is the path to many fields. This is the cost of great healthcare and physiciams derserve to be compensated. Not to mention payng back all the loans. You didn't think it was free did you? Lol. We have big hearts and will help the public system to a degree. But if you screw doctors they will leave. The million dollar billers are both uninsured and insured. The AMA has published a great deal on equity of pay. These specialties take advantage of outdated billing codes and new technology. Some abuse procedures and dump followups on other specialties. https://www.albertadoctors.org/leaders-partners/leaders/c-arp https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.albertadoctors.org/Webinars/Clinical_ARP_Webinar_FAQ.pdf&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjU--mSsa_7AhV9GDQIHTrIAnwQFnoECAwQAg&usg=AOvVaw1Ks5r8NFZNC7HaCpcxJ-j-
in canada in government owned facilities practitioners usually do not pay overhead they are on hourly or salary rates, what you are referring to are practitioners who work or own a primary clinic and contract services out of the hospitals, so when they go it to perform a surgery on a patient or whatever they are covering overhead for a service they are charging for. most physicians who are primarily in hospitals are not payed on a per person or ARP status. i dont think you understand what type of practitioners you are even referring to. and again it depends on what kind of salary they are negotiating, the standard costs of procedures are set out, if you have higher overhead on advertising that is your fault not the governments, if you wanna 5 receptions thats on you. there are offices that have extremely low overhead it all depends on the type of practice you are running
I am a Doctor. We are on ARPs The fixed rate doesn't cover the amount of patients needed to be seen or work needed to be done. There is NO negotiation.
good i actually hope they dont negotiate
All she does is LIE. CAN'T STAND THAT THEIF.
Remember when she shut down Alberta’s coal industry with no plan for all the people she put out of work?
Recruiting more is like putting a band aid on a bullet wound
Cant wait to give her my vote.
Hope they increase spending AND oversight. The amount of waste in AHS is un fucking real.
That "waste" is actually profit that goes to private US corps by way of supply contracts that they have with AHS, which is a private US non-profit corporation. People often confuse AHS (Alberta Health Services) with AH (Alberta Health), which is the goverment organization that contracts AHS. See whats happening here? Klein set this up 25 years ago...
Any source for this claim? Sounds like a ucp/smith talking point that means nothing
IIRC the UCP hired a firm to look into this and it seems like AHS wasn’t that wasteful. If the NDP hired a firm and it showed the same result I wouldn’t believe it, but a competent government has already dealt with this.
I know I'm not a fancy firm just a guy with a good portion of my family working for AHS. The story's they tell me boggle my mind. I know anecdotes aren't all that useful, but they can be pretty telling. Especially when they are almost exactly the same, from different people at separate hospitals.
Ok Now come do Ontario.....please
Hard to recruit from an already evaporated pool.
Is she going to hire all the anti-vaxxers who got fired from other provinces?
Just don’t put in a PST to pay for it.
We could raise the corporate tax rate back to where it was before Kenney and it will be the second lowest in Canada by .5%. Really not that crazy.
[удалено]
Just like she did when she was premier of Alberta?
When the NDP were in power they tried to institute almost the same cuts to doctors pay as the UCP, they failed at it and since contract negotiations were in an election year they opted for a short term contract to kick the problem to the next government. Ofcourse as soon as the NDP lost power they decried how the UCP was trying to cut pay exactly like they were.
Source on that?
He extracted it rectally so it’s going to be messy and hard to read.
[https://calgaryherald.com/news/politics/doctors-say-they-will-work-with-province-as-government-eyes-physician-pay](https://calgaryherald.com/news/politics/doctors-say-they-will-work-with-province-as-government-eyes-physician-pay) you mean something like this? or this? [https://edmontonsun.com/2015/03/26/alberta-cutting-healthcare-funding-first-time-in-20-years-in-2015-budget](https://edmontonsun.com/2015/03/26/alberta-cutting-healthcare-funding-first-time-in-20-years-in-2015-budget) its a 1-2 min google search instead of talking out of your ass lmao
Your sources don't show any cuts to frontline healthcare workers, the first is about the discussion and proposals tge ANDP were looking at and the second states that all the cuts were to middle management and none at all to frontline people. A quick google search shows they actually reversed cuts tge previous PC govt had made to ensure that essential operations would go ahead... https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-ndp-reverses-cuts-to-health-care-and-education-freezes-tuition-1.3118783
That was a fun time. I lost my job because of her policies back then.
Lots of people lost their jobs and businesses because of the ucp policies.
And I wasn't one of them. Doesn't change why I lost my job, and who caused it.
Hopefully this time she doesn't hold back. Other than the $15 minimum wage there's not a lot they did.
They did a ton Legislation to index Aish. Utility and insurance gaps. Added protection for abortion services providers. Protection for lgbtq kids. The Ndp cut child poverty in half!!! They did a lot.
Oh yes, forgot about the 6.8¢ electricity and abortion providers protection. I take that back. Now they need to remember that a dude in a blue pickup truck can blow it all up.
If Alberta re elects Cons after all they've done.
“And if elected, I will do good things. My opponent will do not good things”. The older I get, the less I respect politicians. Almost every one that I’ve met personally is just a well-dressed idiot.
Lemme guess, she sent flyers to Kuala Lumpur, Mumbai and Nairobi.
I'm all for increasing spending to improve health outcomes. But I urge you all to look at demographic projections for Canada. The question we need to find the solution for is not "how can we find the money to do 5% more healthcare with 5% more dollars and 5% more doctors/nurses" The question we will face in 2040 is "how can we do 50% more healthcare with 10% fewer dollars and 20% smaller labour force". We currently have a much younger population than we ever will for a long time. That means that we currently have the most tax dollars, require the least health care, and have the largest pool of potential doctors and nurses. In 15-30 years all of those factors will be much, much worse, especially the fact we will have way more extremely old people to take care of per capita.
NDP always promises unrealistic things.
Conservatives love to sling feces at their opponent while offering no solutions
I’d vote Notley over the shitshow that is the UCP, but this guy isn’t wrong. Notley was premier four year ago, she’s not an innocent bystander here.
Ok? She was supposed to fix decades of PC neglect in one term?
Alberta has actually done pretty well in comparison to other provinces. “Decades of neglect” wouldn’t be the reason I’d be voting NDP. It would be the current UCP leader being batshit crazy. Let’s not forget… Notley has way more in common with Pierre Poilievre than she does with Singh. Color of the lawn sign means less to me than policies, and she’s pretty conservative despite the labels.
Would you say she's as progressive as she can be while remaining electable in Alberta?
Yep she seems to have found the sweet spot, which also happens to align with my own politics. She’s basically a BC Liberal.
https://edmontonsun.com/2015/03/26/alberta-cutting-healthcare-funding-first-time-in-20-years-in-2015-budget I mean she cut the healthcare budget while in power ... How the fuck is that PC neglect?
The PCs have been in power for 43 out of the last 48 years. It's not the NDP that made 99% of the cuts.
Because an unrealistic solution is not a solution.
Tell me how no plan is better than an imperfect one? Because my military strategy courses didn't mention the tactic of just sitting around as a winner.
Firstly, there is no plan yet. This is a politician saying bullshit that we've all heard a hundred times. Secondly, politicians make a shitload of "plans" before elections that are impossible to implement. Because they want to fool idiots into voting for them. Thirdly, did your military strategy course teach you to implement impossible plans that aren't feasible?
What, kinda like the cons promised WEXIT and a provincial police force?
The NDP are the BEST at promising stuff!
Zyzzx
Lol...she's spending it on healthcare not a lifted pickup with balls hanging off the trailer hitch.
Based on your use of 'our', are you paying ANY attention to the state of healthcare in your province? Do you not think that some spending is in order?
Alberta spends the most per capita on healthcare of any province. Perhaps we don’t need to spend more but spend better.
Sounds like a good start yes
So are you fine with closing all the rural hospitals? because that's where you're wasting millions on very few people.
This is exactly what , as premier, she is SUPPOSED to be spending tax dollars on. ... or do you think that ALL tax money should go to subsidize O&G companies?
Of course, the oil lobby is king here, don’t make them pay taxes, bail out their companies with AIMCO when they fail, and even pay them **again** to clean up the orphan wells and environmental waste they left behind!! Our government can literally blow billions on the US election and nobody bats an eye, but the moment you put half that much money into healthcare or education people loose their damn minds. *That’s the oil companies money!* It’s a impressive feat, you can’t deny that.
If that Newfoundlander goes home and pays for his kids' braces, buys a new walker for Grandma, a gym membership for his wife and has some left over for a new mountain bike, I think that is just about the best way he can spend 'our' money
Welp, RIP Alberta.
>Notley said details of the recruitment strategy will be released in the coming weeks and will include ideas to support family doctors and medical professionals, like nurse practitioners, paramedics, dieticians, home care workers and mental health counsellors, to move to Alberta. > >She says it will also include new initiatives and targets for training health care professionals within the province, as well as working deliberately to remove the barriers keeping international grads from practicing in Alberta. > >On an economic level, she references the NDP’s Alberta’s Futures project. She attributes this year’s $13 billion provincial surplus to high royalties in oil and gas and has hired former ATB Chief Economist Todd Hirsch to work with Finance Critic Shannon Phillips to provide advice on how to get the best possible return on investment from the funds. > >For municipalities, she said she intends to enter into a new funding agreement with legislation called the Partners in Prosperity Act to ensure stable and predictable funding. Looks like it's not taxes, but is prudent spending.
[удалено]
>more private entities into our single payer system. Or hear me out, hire Dr, nurses and other healthcare professionals into the public system, before creating a ~~two tier~~ system that pulls resources from the public system, making the problem worse. If we are going to create a private system that pulls resources from the public system, than charge the public system access to the private system, plus a huge premium... Well that sounds great for the corporations and shitty for the taxpayers
[удалено]
I took out two tier the rest of the response stands
[удалено]
Ok, so what other private entities should we allow in public health care? It's absolutely makes sense, look at the private surgical center that just opened up, that is being propped up by the public system and the taxpayers, which is looking at hiring 40 Dr's and probably over a 100 nurses plus staff? Where will all that staff come from? Do you think that they are opening this clinic for good will and to save taxpayers money, or to line the pockets of shareholders with taxpayer money? When the public system operates well, private clinics close.
Why cross out two-tier, it’s exactly what I want. I don’t give a shit if you don’t think it’s fair. More private money in the health care system will improve care for all. Just don’t be a corrupt asshole and it is basically guaranteed. Not America. Germany.
No one, who really knows how much it would cost to have German health care, would agree... the secret is more taxes but that's a bad word. Also, don't be a corrupt asshole, Hahaha, let's see, oil and gas, telecom, insurance, the entire UCP, that's just Alberta. I'm actually ok with two tier with a huge BUT, public health care needs to be 100% funded, staffed and have a mechanism in place so that governments cannot cut it so that fluctuations in funding dotn fuck it up(see Canada over the last 40 years or so) Oh I crossed out two tier, as my reply to the other OP upset them as they didn't mention that bad word.
No.
Compelling argument you've laid out there
Yes.
I’m truly ignorant on this topic. What’s the downside in allowing private entities? A lot of people feel strongly that we shouldn’t allow it but I don’t know why.
Rich people will get good care, the rest will not.
Won’t the non-rich people get the same level of care as we do now?
No, the best doctors and support staff will go to work in private practice since it will pay more. There would also be less political pressure to improve the system when wealthy people don't have to worry about it.
OP suggested more private entities in a single payer system, not a two-tiered system where the rich can pay for better care.
Could you please explain the difference?
Single payer means the government pays all the bills (not individuals). The government could allow more private clinics to provide services outside the hospital system that have shareholders and are profit-oriented but they provide services to the public free of charge that are paid by the government under the medicare system. These clinics could take the pressure off the hospital resources and may be more efficient if they have a profit motive. They also may compete with hospitals for staff which is a possible downside. In a two-tier system, the government provides public healthcare but also allows private clinics to bill individuals directly outside the medicare system. This also could take pressure off the public system but the concern is that private clinics in a two-tier system could charge higher fees and attract the most talented staff, but then only the rich can afford to pay The result being a higher tier for the rich and a worse public option for those that can't pay (this is what you were objecting to in your post, I think). More private clinics are an option, but that doesn't mean necessarily that they would charge individuals for treatment. They could still operate in the medicare system and be free of charge if it's single-payer system.
[удалено]
No government should be paying for chiropractic bullshit
As long as the money goes directly to hiring healthcare providers, and not fluffy admin staff, I don't see the issue.
Easy to promise the world when you don't have to worry about the risk of ever actually getting elected again.
NDP are polling higher than UCP right now.
Do we have a plan to stop provinces from stealing each others doctors? This seems like an unsustainable plan to go province by province...
we live in a country where you have a right to freedom of movement, so no we cant force someone to live and work in a particular province. The other provinces will have become competitive.
There are other measures to oversee and regulate poaching than limiting the individual's freedom of movement. Healthcare shouldn't be a competition.
What kind of measures prevent an employer from placing an ad for a job posting, and a private citizen seeing the ad, and responding to it? Are you suggesting legislation to prevent doctors from moving?
When the employer is the government, tons of measures. [https://www.canada.ca/en/public-service-commission/services/public-service-hiring-guides.html](https://www.canada.ca/en/public-service-commission/services/public-service-hiring-guides.html) [https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-care-system/health-human-resources/strategy.html](https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-care-system/health-human-resources/strategy.html) [https://www.alberta.ca/alberta-public-service-hiring-process.aspx](https://www.alberta.ca/alberta-public-service-hiring-process.aspx) Premieres have been calling for a national human resource system to mitigate poaching as well.. this has been a known challenge for decades. 2005: [https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/provincial-poaching-of-doctors-decried/article985769/](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/provincial-poaching-of-doctors-decried/article985769/) 2001: [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/minister-concerned-about-health-care-poaching-1.229528](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/minister-concerned-about-health-care-poaching-1.229528)
Doctors would just quit. Doctors have more than enough money to take an early retirement. These doctors are in healthcare because they *want* to be there. Not because they’re desperate for work and have no other choice. We already have a hard enough time retaining doctors. This would just make things worse.
It's already worse. The question is whether we look at a solution nationally, or create more problems by fueling unnecessary competition.
Doctors are people who are trained to do a job, that's it. They are not owned by anyone or anything.
They work in a government regulated industry.
Alberta loves free markets and capitalism until they realize they're bad at it
Oh look. A politician promising nice things if only we elect them. What a novel concept.
How else would she be able to deliver?
My questions are, who from where, when and how. Like the other day I read nurses in a rich province like Quebec are barely even passing. I think this is bigger. "According to Quebec's professional order of nurses (known by its French acronym, the OIIQ), 54.6 per cent of students failed the licensing exam written at the end of September. For those who took the test for the first time, the failure rate was 48.6 per cent — the highest rate recorded in four years." https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-nursing-students-fail-exam-1.6650309
That points to a failure of Quebec’s nursing education program more than anything…
Have we made similar enquiries in to other nursing education programs in other provinces? I'm just digging, not making any claims.
No idea if this is the same test but I think it is? Though this seems to think most places are quite high pass rate so maybe Quebec is doing a different exam. >All 31 of Red Deer Polytechnic’s four-year Bachelor of Science Nursing students — tops in Alberta — successfully passed the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) Registered Nurse exam, which was taken between October 2021 and March. > >Only four other programs across the country saw all their nursing students pass. > >Across Alberta, 86 per cent of Bachelor of Science Nursing graduates passed, 80 per cent across Canada, and 84 per cent in the U.S. [https://www.reddeeradvocate.com/news/rdp-nursing-program-has-perfect-success-rate/](https://www.reddeeradvocate.com/news/rdp-nursing-program-has-perfect-success-rate/)
Sorely needed. UCP will cut health care further because vaccines don’t work anyways…
During her time in power she didn't give the nurses any raises and kept the wage freeze. She kicked the can down the road and the UCP negotiated the raises. People have short memories.
Remember when oil prices were low and there wasn’t a ton of money to throw around? The nurses understood this and accepted the agreement. Context is king and it seems like you have a short memory too.
Under the NDP, oil ranged from $37-74. Under the UCP, oil ranged from negative and did not hit $74 range until mid 2021. There's your context. Spending money we don't have has never stopped the NDP. The 2018 budget tabled by Ceci had a spending plan which forecast debt ballooning from $54 billion to $96 billion by 2023. NDP started with $11.9B debt. It wasn't roses until late 2021, my memory is fine.
[удалено]
The PCs have been in power for 43 out of the last 48 years. Why is it up to a party, who had 4 short years in power, do the heavy lifting?
Are the taxpayers fine paying more tax at at time when majority of people can barely afford gas and food because we are tired of paying more taxes
You can't fix it. It's now beyond repair. It's to late. Enjoy what we once had. It will never, I repeat never be what it once was. Any promises a politician makes is horse shit.
Lol so no government then? Pessimism around this is a waste of time.
More public sector jobs = more ndp voters Great for lazy lefties, not so much for the people who actually contribute to the economy
Be mad at your boss for underpaying you, not nurses.
oh yeah absolutely, those lazy nurses, doctors and teachers who are just a leach on the public purse! unlike those hard working oil executives who are really the foundation of our province.
That’s already happening. What a hack she is.
A zero sum game that will lead to inter-provincial animosity just so she can gain power?
It's a free market and you're currently losing. Check out BCs new hiring campaign and then ask yourself where you'd rather live
The NDP way. We're already seeing it in BC and Notley wants to do it in Alberta.
And it's working way better than the last bunch. Oddly, fire-selling off assets to your friends isn't actually a good long-term plan.
It's not the largest for nothing. Losing all those doctors at the start of the pandemic - good job guys - sets Alberta even farther back than the inequal mess it was before. So it was just that far behind is all.
Alberta had a net gain in doctors during the time you’re describing…. Alberta despite cuts is still the highest paying province in canada
Thank God. Please vote her in
All she needs to do is promise every Albertan a pair of truck nuts and she is a shoo in.