Open letter to the government of the province of Alberta:
Here is your reality.
Here is a story for you. If this story does not tell how badly the Conservative government has failed every Alberta resident in the province of Alberta, nothing will.
In 1983, I was pregnant and having gall bladder attacks during my third trimester. Once the baby was born, I had my gall bladder removed in the Wainwright hospital where I lived before my baby was six weeks old -- in less than six weeks from being eligible to have the surgery.
Fast forward to 2022. That same baby is now 38 and over the past 10 weeks has been having gall bladder attacks for which he is hospitalized each time to get the attack under control and to be checked out. He lives in the Sundre area. He has had all the tests and the diagnosis is that he needs to have his gall bladder removed. His surgeon has told him that he is on the wait list to have his gall bladder removed in Red Deer approximately 36 months from now.
If you worked at a remote work site outside of Slave Lake, where surgical services are far away, and you were having gall bladder attacks on a weekly basis, how satisfied would you be with how this government is dedicating the level of care you were receiving from this government?
My son has lost 30 pounds in the past 10 weeks because he cannot eat anything without having a gall bladder attack. My son is not fat. How long to you think he is going to live with an average weight loss of three pounds per week? Let me do the math for you. At 79 pounds, an adult is in danger of dying. My son weighs 150 pounds. If he continues to lose weight, he will pass away after 71 weeks give or take, he will also get to be too weak to stay employed and his family with four children that he supports will be on welfare. Just to clarify, 71 weeks is 1.4 years. The wait time for his surgery is three years.
I hope this government has deep pockets to pay out all these extra costs for trips to the ER weekly, and social services to support a family of six once he can no longer work, or if he loses his job from having too many sick days. That will be four boys' registration fees not being paid to Sundre Minor Hockey and less fees Sundre Minor Hockey will be contributing to paying for ice time to the Town of Sundre.
Who do you think the Town of Sundre will be looking at to fill that gap in their revenue to pay to keep the arena going? Do you see the snowballing here? Do you see the costs on society for these delays in surgery?
Part B of my story, at the being of COVID a colleague of mine had to to fly to Ontario to help her daughter bury her son-in-law who was sent home with a gall bladder attack and died because his gall bladder burst that night.
For myself, knowing that my colleague buried her son-in-law from the same thing, how worried do you think that I am that my son could suffer the same fate while waiting 36 months for surgery? How upset do you think I am that a simply gall bladder surgery must wait all that time and take that kind of chance? While in the same breath his surgeon is telling him that no one has died from gall bladder issues.
My suggestion is that the government break through all the barriers to providing adequate health care to each and every citizen of the province. I cannot stress to you enough that Red Deer is not just a small city, but that Red Deer is the only place for any citizen in Central Alberta to receive any surgery including more common surgeries like gall bladder, appendix, hysterectomies, etc. In the past, these surgeries were available in the local hospitals and in a timely manner.
Instead of taking an eternity to get something done, perhaps this government can get into the COVID speed the federal government used to get financial help to families. Stop the lip flap in public and get in behind the scenes and get something done. Act like it was your family this story was about. Get it done, do not just provide lip service. Hire the people that need to be hired. Speed up your central hiring system and streamline the system so that someone can be hired in the province faster than several weeks.
Do you know how long it takes from hiring decision to getting those same boots on the ground? Do you know how long it takes to get from application day to first day worked in your system?
No one who is unemployed is going to wait two to three months for you to make up your mind who you are hiring and to get to work their first day. Streamline this system. Act like you are in emergency mode, because you are. Get the outdated and cumbersome red tape out of the system.
I do not know how to fix the system, but I think the politicians need to find a way to treat the health-care system with the same due care as every citizen wants to be treated as a patient.
Deb Poynter, PBA
Bowden
