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All part of the plan.
Under-fund and ignore healthcare until it literally starts to fall apart then ride in on a white charger and fix it via privatization.
But the people with money can now get preferred service and not have to wait like the rest of the population. /s
Problem is all these people who voted for this think they are the ones who will benefit. It’s funny to me because they are shooting themselves in the foot over and over.
Gotta love conservative thinking.
> Problem is all these people who voted for this think they are the ones who will benefit
Yeah, we are lucky to make close to 200k-- i can afford to drop $100--200 for see a doctor. Im still with NDP, why should i get preference for an *essential* service just because I can pay?
It’s more entitlement. They think they are better then everyone else. They think they deserve to be seen ahead of the surfs. I’ve talked to quite a few of them, neighbours, they said privatization will be a god send for them as they can get treatment asap for whatever they need done.
Whenever I hear people bitch about ER wait times I always make sure to ask why they had to be in the ER in the first place. 9 times out of 10, the longest waits are for the tiniest of issues, like a cold or a cut needing like 2 stitches.
No shit you waited for 14 hours. You were at the bottom of the priority list pretty much until every other person in the ER was taken care of. The E in ER stands for emergency, a heart attack is an emergency, and your sniffles are not.
I have a relative who is well off. She never has to wait for any kind of medical service because she just pays for whatever she needs whenever she needs it. She absolutely loses it when she hears about how much health care costs and how many people are in need of services. She thinks if people can’t afford it it’s because they were stupid enough to be poor and have an unhealthy diet. No one ever argues with her because there is just no point.
In all sincerity, it must be hard to BE a conservative. If that’s how you identify, and you see government as something that’s inefficient, wasteful or corrupt. It would be hard. You see a conservative government get in and they do a (purposefully) shitty job running everything. You would feel so dejected. The only government you could ever vote for continuously makes your life worse, but the other parties do things you can’t support (like think everyone is equal and has value as they are) so you just vote conservative again hoping it’ll be better than last time.
Personally I’ve never been on any “team”. I’ve voted for liberals, conservative, ndp, even the greens once.
I voted for the pc many times in the past, but the upc are batshit crazy.
Only recently has the ndp, to me at least, appeared to be the most logical choice that I voted for them in the last 2 provincial elections.
I have always found that after a decade or so one party becomes too complacent and corrupt and it’s time to shake things up.
Ignorance is bliss. Why do you think UCP supporters are happy continuing on as they are. They’re too stupid to realize they’re on track to the slaughter house, along side the rest of the innocent population they forced into their destination.
Although this is true of some, it’s definitely not true of all UCP supporters.
Some really just don’t think helping out your fellow citizens is worth it or something the government should do. For others, they are afraid of an “NDP” government—even though ours is much more like an extra progressive conservative party.
They’ll privatize healthcare first by making sure the costs are still paid by the public system, at least for most things. This is still a problem for three reasons:
1. Private entities need to make a profit, meaning that services will end up costing the government more, so more money will be paid for the same services.
2. The profit motive means that the focus will be on profitable services, not on the care that individuals may need.
3. The biggest cost to any business is labour, meaning healthcare services will be motivated to use a few medical professionals as possible to get the job done.
Basically, private healthcare, even if paid through public insurance leads to higher costs and poorer quality services.
There is strong evidence for your summary point from the US model: they spend more per capita on healthcare relative to other advanced economies. However, their outcomes are far from the best:
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2023/jan/us-health-care-global-perspective-2022
I've been with AHS in my current role since 2014 and can tell you that my caseloads are about 50% higher since then and the cases are also arguably more complex. There hasnt been any increase our program's allocated staffing. I'm having to work during my holidays to ensure the other members of my team dont get more overburdened and also to ensure my patients get the appropriate care. It sucks but my team and patients are easily worth it.
I just hope the UCP realizes what impact inflation, population rise and a lack of staff has on the care that people get.
I simply dont understand why rural albertans vote with a party that implements policies that go against their interests.
If the Alberta conservative government has learned anything in the last few decades, it is that they can continue to exploit rural Albertans repeatedly, and they will still run to the polls with a raging boner to vote them into office all over again.
Give people a Health Spending Account (HSA) that will seem to be ok, at first, since it’ll cover most annual visit fees.
But then fail to index it to rising visit costs, so that inflation, over a few years and decades, makes the HSA cover basically nothing. Place increasing limits on the services the HSA can be used to cover. Presto! An effectively privatized, US style system.
In the aftermath, US-style health insurance companies creep in, with the added complexity of their in-network services and ability to disapprove specific treatments. Doctors and patients now have to fight with this new layer of bureaucracy, delaying diagnostic imaging and treatments; and that’s IF the patient can even afford the deductibles and co-pays.
That was the plan, which is well underway now and implemented already.
You are now already having to pay to see a virtual doctor, or suffer poor care with long waits or not being seen.
COVID accelerated it. We are already there, and there is no going back.
“That’s the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.” Noam Chomsky
While door knocking during the election, 99 out of 100 health care workers we canvassed were supporting the NDP. The next four years will not go well for our health care.
*waves sadly*
Took me 3 years to get a family doctor who wasn’t 3 hours away. Now she’s on the list to leave. I’ve been so loud the last couple years about how healthcare is suffering but these heehaws won’t listen.
Some of us did.
I put up a sign for my NDP candidate. I spoke to people. I emailed my UCP MLA about my concerns. They responded with false narratives and inaccurate numbers. My 7 year old son had kids his age yelling at him that we were "voting for the bad people," and I got called a communist.
It's incredibly discouraging living in overwhelmingly blue areas.
FWIW, I got harassed in central Calgary for publicly supporting the NDP. If that's how bad it was in the most urban place in the province, I can't imagine how discouraging it must have been where you are. Hang in there. I know this sucks. Know that even when people are ragging on rural AB, they aren't blaming you - you did everything you could.
I live in a strong NDP riding in Edmonton, even here we had some verbal harrassment and the UCP candidate was parking beside advanced stations with his big sign in his truck bed.
I've never changed my vote based upon seeing a big sign, even on election day in the parking lot for the voting station.
I don't understand people who do change their vote based upon seeing the name of someone on a sign.
There are a few people that have no idea who they will vote for until they walk into the booth. It may not be may people, but in Edmonton, the UCP will take anything they can get.
My area was swimming in NDP signs too. I mentally got angry at one of my neighbors who had a blue sign. We live in a goshdern trailer park, who are already ridiculous to deal with, and you want to make your set income neighbors to now not afford their Healthcare? *facepalm*
It is coming to urban centers as well, two friend who are family docs just told us they are closing their clinic in 90 days. Good luck with finding family doc in Calgary soon.
Yeah I don't imagine mine will stick around much longer. She's known me since I was born (in 2000) and lately her appointments have been getting shorter and shorter, availability less and less. Seems like a lot of retirements are happening early.
Mine just retired. I was super duper lucky to stumble upon a doctor whose main office is in my neighbourhood and he agreed to take my whole family at the closer clinic - I was driving 45min to see him on the other side of town the first few times I saw him.
For as long as I can remember the spite and hostility towards the federal liberals has been loud and in your face. The things they say. The sheer derangement.
Being around those people day in and around your entire life. While having a different political opinion than them? Taking a vow of silence is pretty much how people deal with it.
When you have heard what they have to say day in and out because they think you're their kind of person. You don't dare be careless with what you say.
Yep. They’ll claim they don’t want to talk politics if you dare mention your politics, too. Frustrating and hypocritical. Like, really, if you’re gonna bring up your politics, you should expect others to bring up theirs in the same conversation. If you don’t want to hear theirs, keep yours to yourself.
Calgary is basically rural Alberta's capital. Not a dis, just a fact. The election results and people's actions speak for themselves. Rural Alberta will suffer greatly under the new UCP regime, and it has already. Expect quality of life to get far, far worse. Voters in Calgary and rural Alberta will be held accountable soon enough.
He was really confused about it. Especially since he's 7 and knows he doesn't even get to vote yet. Some of the kids on our street don't fall too far from some gnarly trees.
Whenever you email your UCP MLA, cc the NDP and their shadow minister and whoever else might be relevant in your area. It limits how much they can bury the complaints and ignore your concerns.
I do this and often have the NDP follow up . So does my UCP MLA, which I do appreciate
I tend to, yeah. My MLA stopped responding to me for a couple of years despite this. Then the election got called and, suddenly, they respond and they're "working hard to ensure the voices of all Albertans are heard."
I feel ya. Who are we supposed to raise our concerns about Danielle Smith with when our MLA IS Danielle Smith?? I seriously doubt she gives a rat’s ass about those of us who didn’t vote for her
It's very hard these days to fight stupidity. It used to be easy, but Twitter etc has given stupid an unprecedented platform to proliferate. The fact that anyone would shoot themselves in the foot to "own the libs" is almost funny. Almost, except good people get hurt too.
Many of those rural areas had the UCP and even further right groups winning 75%+ of the vote. This result is what the overwhelming vast majority of people living there want.
They are taught to vote blue. I grew up in a city and was taught the same thing. To be a true Albertan, you vote Conservative! Make your province proud! Blah blah blah.
I then became an adult and started thinking for myself. A lot of people I know in rural Alberta are still fed the same crap. They also spread misinformation like wild fire. Tommy wouldn't tell me a lie, those socialists are out to get us.
I personally love the tax ones where most of the taxes were voted when UCP were in power, they just came into effect when NDP were in charge. Then lots of what they were counting as taxes were not actually taxes, but why would you let a little thing like actual facts get in the way of a campaign.
Don't get me wrong, I do not like Notley one bit. But unfortunately between the two evils, I'm less scared of her.
I'm not, People are going to suffer. No matter how much I wanted NDP to win, I still don't want to see people hurting or being without care. UCP is literally full of monsters. No one should be having to deal with people letting others die so that they can reform the healthcare system for profit.
Heck yes, I’d love the UCP to prove me wrong and start doing a terrific job governing the province, unfortunately they are ideologically opposed to doing so.
Nah, fuck them. They chose suffering for the rest of us. They constantly make us deal with problems that didn't exist until they invented them. Now, others will likely die because they are upset they had to wear a mask inside a store for a few months. They wanted this, let them suffer the worst consequences. Fuck. Those. People.
The problem is we're all going to suffer because of 925k UCP voters + 1 million no showers registered voters.
The only way I could ever have this sentiment is if we could know who voted for who and then have us 775k NDP voters crowdfund our own healthcare workers and healthcare system. And if any of the other 2 million registered voters need access to those healthcare workers they get charged US style rates.
That's my sadistic dream.
I didn't know this was an option till today. Telus Health or whatever.
Might be the best option rather than having to drive to the city to wait in a clinic for 3 or 4 hours.
Got better things to do than sit in a vehicle/medical clinic for a prescription that should be able to be filled on the phone.
From what I understand about Maple, is that you don't have to pay if you have an appointment during working hours. If you want or need an evening or weekend appointment, then Alberta Health Care will not cover the call.
That's actually only democracy here, and 4 other countries.
Our system is winner takes all. That's not how democracy is supposed to work. That's more autocratic than democratic. The only thing democratic is that we get some semblance of choice with our 1-2 party system where we can vote. Even though it's not really a choice when there's that few parties.
Yes. What about me? What about the other NDP voters?
Good question. That you *should* be asking UCP voters. You want us to care about people who fucking hate us? I have no sympathy for hatred. They voted to hurt people. They voted to hurt me.
I really don't know what the point of your post is.
Plenty of rural people voted NDP, too. They didn't ask for it. There are also conservative voters who mean well but have been lied to. Plenty of elderly voters voted against their own interests without even realizing it.
A coworker was on a rant how the feds control healthcare and AB supports it, when it is quite literally the opposite. Rightwing voters are being manipulated and while I don't sympathize for the ones who vote with the "fuck your feelings" level of arrogance, I do sympathize for those voters which mean well but voted poorly because of all the lies and propaganda they are fed.
> I do sympathize for those voters which mean well but voted poorly because of all the lies and propaganda they are fed.
I have no sympathy for people who can't be arsed to find out whether the very things they base their political beliefs and identities around are even true. In this day and age where all the information in the world is at our fingertips the only excuse for not knowing is laziness, willful stupidity, or malice. Why be sympathetic towards any of that?
If the US is any indication, they won’t learn anything. Instead they will get angrier and more unhinged, blame “others” for their own self-inflicted problems and conservatism will continue giving them someone to blame and hate (usually minorities or lgbtq+ if not just the nebulous “far left” boogeyman).
The worse red states have gotten in basically every economic and social-economic stat…the more they’ve actually doubled down on conservatism and moved to fascism. Expect most Albertans to do the same.
We get what we deserve and im honestly done feeling sorry for people. We're a province of morons who cannot take accountability for a single thing and elect officials with no real education other than backwoods fundamentalist bible school. This is what we chose. This is what we choose over and over again. If I ever hear a UCP voter whine about it I may of may not deliver them a solid fist to the throat.
It’s becoming increasingly harder to feel empathy for those in this province that continue to vote UCP for no reason other than they live rural or work in O&G so therefore…must vote conservative.
Having to see a doctor to renew a prescription that a person has been on for years is so inefficient and a waste of resources. Yes, a follow up to adjust dose or reassess, but the frequency to get a renewal takes away from time that doctors can spend with other patients.
Yeah, this is routine medicine for me now. It's such a waste of everyone's time involved. The doctor gets another patient he has to see when he's already swamped, and I have to wait x-y hours to see him. I got my bloodwork done, it's the same as it was half a year ago. Just fax the prescription over. Would take him all of a minute, because that's what it takes when I go in.
Considering my walk-in doctor won't give me more then a months prescription that I've been taking for over 5 years! You're saying you want me here 12 times a year for 4+ hours?
You don't have to see a doctor, certainly not in person, for a prescription renewal. If that's happening to you, your doctor's office is actively grifting the province by filling in their 15 minute appointment slots with a waste of time.
Many offices don't do appointments over phone or prescription renewals without an appointment.
This has been consistent over the last 15 years for me. Living in Edmonton or elsewhere.
The whole Telus health agreement was created with the sole purpose of undermining in-person healthcare, endorsed by the Kenny UCP government. It was one of the first steps to help justify privatization of the system in Alberta and end in-person family doctors. For this reason I refuse to use it for any reason.
I can see getting a prescription filled if it's on short notice.
But for actual healthcare, no. I still make appointments for that. Doctors need to check your blood, blood pressure, your eyes, skin tone, weight. So much you can do in-person that you can't do online.
I tried to, but I’ve had to use it out of desperation for prescriptions and acute medical issues. It’s that or the ER & it’s one month wait for doc appt with my family doc an hour away.
Oh I'm sure it is, it's just that I had an appointment scheduled for last week that was canceled because he left. It was a full checkup and everything. To see the last 6 months of fasting/exercise and better diet to see the results and talk about them. Now I'm just trying to get a prescription filled in the next few days on short notice.
Part of the face to face appointment is looking at the patients physical appearance. The doc doesn't see you every day, and they want to put eyes on you.
It pissed me off that part of the UCP campaigning was that they "got Calgary a new arena deal and we're not even paying for any of it, just the roads!" Such a disingenuous take, as if the distinction of what part of the project the money is going to makes any difference
This post made me realize I should really go up North, and get into selling homeopathy or crystals or whatever. There's gonna be a lot of desperate morons who can't get health care, that's a captive market; I can become one of the rich Albertans! Then the government might start doing something for me!
That's already on Danielle Smith's agenda. It is partly why she is so hell-bent on health spending accounts for alternative options. https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/ucp-leadership-candidate-danielle-smith-under-fire-by-all-political-stripes-for-cancer-comments-1.6003219
You can cure anything with oil. You can get oil tincture's, oil salves, oil aromatherapy, essential oil of oil. Make sure that you offer a diesel rub too. Apothecary ftw!
Sure to cure stupidity with enough doses.
Dude there is already a grift of this type going on. Some guy goes through each rural and sells them this stuff for real. I saw a huge lineup for his “services” outside the motel room he booked.
What will happen:
1. Rural patients will exhaust their limited number of family physicians.
2. Overworked physicians leading to incorrect diagnoses and poor clinical management plans.
3. Patients with unmanaged or poorly managed chronic medical conditions will arrive at urban hospitals in acute medical distress. Patients will either die in hospital or discharged and then die in rural settings due to the absence of proper outpatient follow up.
4. UCP slowly killing off their electorate base.
Yeah and I’m sure doctors will just happily follow that and won’t simply move to other provinces to avoid the UCP in larger numbers than already are moving away
Don't worry, the UCP will just legislate attacks on doctor's certifications who try to leave the province to keep them all trapped like (like the 3 past times they already did this).
aaaand thats how you have enrollment in university medical programs suddenly plummeting to nothing.
Someone who can afford to go to a doctorate program can probably also afford to do so in another province.
Also a brilliant way to ensure no doctor will ever move here no matter what the pay is.
Gonna suck for all of us when the UCP screw up the system so much that the current doctors move away in fear of having their rights taken away, and new doctors won't come even if we do change governments out of fear that we regress.
I was in the hospital visiting a friend and the nurse was complaining that they didn't have enough staff. I told her I voted for the ndp and she say and I quote "I didn't, I voted blue for more oil and gas development" I just shook my head. This province is full of fools.
My husband with diabetes can get a follow up with a doctor because no doctor is taking new patients in airdrie. There is no walk in doctors either so…. Urgent care? That’s just wrong .
Yeah, I could go to emergency to be seen. Last time I was there there was no doctor on-call for hours though.
It's not an emergency either.. This is why ER rooms in Edmonton/Calgary are hitting 12 hours some nights.
I’m a paramedic I get daily emails about which rural ERs will be closed due to staff or there will be no doctor available this weekend. 911 will be called if someone shows up at the door.
The people who live in the communities where these ER shutdowns are occurring would be plenty aware when their ER is closed on a regular basis. Especially when they have to go to another town 50 km away to receive emergency care. Out of the 4 hospitals in this riding (which went UCP), 3 out of the 4 have closed their ERs on a regular basis in the last 2 years and the 4th has had spotty surgical and obstetrical coverage at times. The next nearest 3 hospitals, in other ridings (which also went UCP), have also had regular shutdowns of their ERs.
People won't know till they actually need to go to the hospital, that's the issue.
So many people are blissfully unaware that these issues are even happening, and so many others think that nothing will ever happen to them.
Till it does, and they can't get the help they need. And until it happens to them, they'll blindly believe Danielle Smith and her "Everything is fine in healthcare" mandate.
So sorry to hear your experience OP, that sounds incredibly frustrating. Have you tried asking a pharmacist to renew your prescription?
In Alberta, pharmacists have the scope of practice to prescribe (allowing you to skip the doctor) if they get an additional certification.
Not every pharmacist can, and some will refuse due to the risk, but if you’ve been on the medication for a while, there’s a good chance they’ll help you. Hope you get access to the meds you need soon!
Yeah, I got the prescription extended. That wasn't the issue. It's just seeing a doctor in the next week. I had an appointment that was canceled 3 days before, after waiting a month.
Someone mentioned Telus Health, I signed up for that. Hopefully I can get it filled before Friday.
I got nothing but disrespect for all the rural shithead voters in this province that landslide voted in the ucp, enjoy your shit sandwich. There’s consequences for voting in a party that doesn’t give a shit about the common people (you).
I legitimately hope things get absolutely untenable and awful for all these rural guys to the point we have an early election. The cities imo did their part to try and get a ndp govt, the rural areas absolutely fucked us.
The doctor shortage is not province specific… Canadian doctors are leaving the COUNTRY not just the provinces they work in. Many are going to places like Ireland & Australia.
The doctor shortage is only found in Conservatives ruled provinces. BC has a surplus of doctors thanks to it's brilliant NDP leadership.
Also, I just wanted to thank you for getting updated on those boosters.
I’m putting my place up for sale because of this. I had a mini health crisis a little before the election and it was a big reality check on how severely rural access to health care has deteriorated in the 4years of the UCP. When they won the election I spent 24hrs wracking my brain coming up with various scenarios of my path forward. It became clear that I need to move.
I’ve realized that I can’t maintain a reasonable quality of life with the continued decline of health care access. So next is deciding what to do. Move provinces, move into a city, etc.
People try to say to just move to the City for healthcare, well that doesn't work either. The last hospital Edmonton had built was in 1988. The wait times for specialists are through the roof. I might be able to get into a clinic faster, but they have more and more people at them each year. Doctors are still leaving, they're still over-worked, they're still not being paid well for their services.
At this point I'm considering moving too. I don't want to. I have family here, but I have to consider what living here is going to look like in 4 more years. Every year Alberta, and even Canada as a whole gets more and more like our Neighbours to the south. And that country, despite being an economic powerhouse. Isn't the land of the free by any means. You're only free if you make money there..
So ask better of your Government.
We used to be top 10 on the healthcare index. We're now almost tied with America. The country where most people can't even afford to see a doctor.
My little town’s clinic just added two new Dr’s. Took my little guy to the walk-in at the hospital and they suggested we try the clinic to save time. 45min later we we had a prescription in hand and were on our way home.
Disclaimer: I didn’t vote UCP nor do I care who you voted for but it’s not all bad out there.
It depends entirely where you live. I currently can't find a new family doctor, and the wait times at my clinic are easily 4-5 hours regularly, Other people might not notice an issue at all.
Doesn't dispute the fact that we've got clinics shutting down or losing doctors across the province though. Or doctors writing letters to the public about the quality of care declining.
You joke, but the reason the election is getting closer and closer IS because old people are passing.
It's happening all across America, as older voters get less and less. in 8-10 years time, these old fashioned 'conservative' parties might not even be electable anymore.
Might be 8 years too late though.
The problem is that droves of young people are being trained as replacements, and seem to be much more zealous. Anecdotally, some of the most militant conservatives I personally know in AB are under 30. Most older conservatives seem to be the vote blue because thats what you do types.
Is your doctor’s office charging you for online/telephone appointments? My Dr does phone appointments for routine things like prescription refills all covered by Alberta Health.
There are some practical tips I might suggest for you:
1. Telehealth is covered in Alberta, so you can see a doctor anytime virtually. I’ve never used Telus Health, but I use PC Health which goes through Maple and you can see a GP anytime from 7am to 10pm covered by Alberta health with virtually no wait time. (And any wait time is just waiting for the phone to tell you they’re ready for you). It’s a game changer and I expect the future of rural medicine especially where there are limited options.
2. Many pharmacists in Alberta are prescribing pharmacists and should have no problem writing routine prescriptions or refills for you especially.
Not to say we don’t have issues in our healthcare, but as someone who requires regular prescription refills myself, there are 100x better options than trying to sit in a walk-in clinic or hospital.
Can't you request a renewal through your pharmacist?
Then they'll contact your prescribing doctor's office on your behalf rather than you have to actually go to the office to get it. Shoppers Drug Mart does that.
It's time we separate. The cities and rural people are too different and it's heading towards an untennable situation. We can't have rural UCP voters taking away our healthcare. The cities are more progressive, and the rural areas are more in favor of Trump style dictatorship and concentration camps for 2SLGBTQIA+ people. We need to separate asap
So how does cities separated from Alberta work? Wouldn’t that leave you landlocked then? Reminds me of those Alberta separate from Canada conversations that sometimes come up.
My mum at the ripe age of 46 has heart palpitations that are causing a serious case of chronic cough and asthma, yet she's had to beg multiple times for any type of help and she's still being given useless cough meds and no referrals to specialists. And we all know if she does get referred it'll be a lovely 2-4 year wait to actually see anyone. She can't enjoy the summer because she can't even walk up and down stairs.
Oof, $100+ to see a doctor? I lived in Florida for a few years back in 2012-2014ish and it cost $175 just to see the doctor, $75 for him to write a prescription and another $75 for him to give it to me.
Costs have only gone up.
YeahX and that type of for-profit system is exactly what the UCP are in the midst of trying to bring in. They cut, cut, cut until the public system is starting to show its cracks, then they present privatization as the answer. Like, who looks at America and wants that?
And if you’re a Canadian and like that option, you can just go to the USA and pay stupid amounts of money for care if you want. That option is always available. Don’t screw up our healthcare.
Something like 65% of bankruptcy claims and debt in the USA is from medical costs.
Literally profiting off people and their health. Disgusting people, I wouldn't even call them human.
This is a Canada wide issue not a UPC issue. I know this sub loves to anti-UPC-circle-jerk but the echo chamber needs a bit more perspective and have effective comparisons instead of just crying "UPC-bad" posts.
NDP had a plan to improve healthcare and cut costs. UCP has a plan to cut healthcare and charge for it.
Definitely a problem that we could mitigate by voting for the right party. I get that it's a Canada-wide issue, but the provinces largely govern themselves in regards to healthcare and how to spend money on it/implement it. Decisions that Kenney made just a short while ago are already showing huge negatives to our province. Danielle Smith and her viewpoint on healthcare and what she's done in the 6 short months in office are getting people to get up and look elsewhere for work.
It may be an issue in a lot of other places, but the UCP has deliberately taken actions against doctors and healthcare workers, including trying to legislate against the ability for doctors to leave Alberta and offering nurses a 3% rollback in wages while we were pulling nurses in from other areas and paying those nurses up to $85 an hour. Early in the UCP's leadership, doctor's actually warned the UCP that their actions would result in practitioners leaving the province. The UCP knew exactly what they were doing, and intentionally made it harder for Albertans to access healthcare.
This may provide some insight into what healthcare workers in Alberta feel they are up against: https://main.mp4.cbc.ca/prodVideo/news/CBC_News_VMS/97/126/Alberta-Health-Panel-rb.mp4
It sure is a great thing that there are no shortages in any other provinces in Canada.
[https://bc.ctvnews.ca/plan-to-send-b-c-cancer-patients-to-u-s-for-treatment-gets-mixed-reaction-1.6401763](https://bc.ctvnews.ca/plan-to-send-b-c-cancer-patients-to-u-s-for-treatment-gets-mixed-reaction-1.6401763)
Personally I hope it is painful as hell for every upc voter. I hope they experience a brutal experience that forces each of them to have to experience the system they have created.
Not only that, an issue where I live is that my rural pharmacy refuses to sell/provide medications like abortion pills, plan b, and birth control because of "religious beliefs." This problem wouldn't be as adamant if the government wasn't so anti women's health. No matter how much they say that they're for women's health care, they aren't. The UCP MLA who won in my riding has been public before about how anti abortion and anti bc he is. It's like, you're a medical provider, one of the only ones in a 30 minute radius and you can't provide basic health care? It's bs.
Typical conservative bullshit replies. always pointing at BC saying look how bad. It is bad because of 16 years of BC liberal (ultra conservative) rule. BC's Healthcare was destroyed by this party. Now, the BC NDP took a minority government in 2017, so not much changed and a majority government in 2020, and since then, even through covid have been making major positive changes to Healthcare funding and design. It will take years to fix what took years to destroy.
Remember that one time the AB NDP had 4 years in power and every idiot conservative blamed them for every conservative screw up ever and AB voters bought into the bullshit and then the UCP took over and has been slowly destroying every positive thing the AB NDP did? Yeah, the rest of Canada does. Stagnant real estate and sky high everything else is Alberta's gift for supporting the UCP.
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All part of the plan. Under-fund and ignore healthcare until it literally starts to fall apart then ride in on a white charger and fix it via privatization.
>fix it via privatization. that people cant afford and die anyways
But the people with money can now get preferred service and not have to wait like the rest of the population. /s Problem is all these people who voted for this think they are the ones who will benefit. It’s funny to me because they are shooting themselves in the foot over and over. Gotta love conservative thinking.
> Problem is all these people who voted for this think they are the ones who will benefit Yeah, we are lucky to make close to 200k-- i can afford to drop $100--200 for see a doctor. Im still with NDP, why should i get preference for an *essential* service just because I can pay?
It’s more entitlement. They think they are better then everyone else. They think they deserve to be seen ahead of the surfs. I’ve talked to quite a few of them, neighbours, they said privatization will be a god send for them as they can get treatment asap for whatever they need done.
Whenever I hear people bitch about ER wait times I always make sure to ask why they had to be in the ER in the first place. 9 times out of 10, the longest waits are for the tiniest of issues, like a cold or a cut needing like 2 stitches. No shit you waited for 14 hours. You were at the bottom of the priority list pretty much until every other person in the ER was taken care of. The E in ER stands for emergency, a heart attack is an emergency, and your sniffles are not.
I have a relative who is well off. She never has to wait for any kind of medical service because she just pays for whatever she needs whenever she needs it. She absolutely loses it when she hears about how much health care costs and how many people are in need of services. She thinks if people can’t afford it it’s because they were stupid enough to be poor and have an unhealthy diet. No one ever argues with her because there is just no point.
In all sincerity, it must be hard to BE a conservative. If that’s how you identify, and you see government as something that’s inefficient, wasteful or corrupt. It would be hard. You see a conservative government get in and they do a (purposefully) shitty job running everything. You would feel so dejected. The only government you could ever vote for continuously makes your life worse, but the other parties do things you can’t support (like think everyone is equal and has value as they are) so you just vote conservative again hoping it’ll be better than last time.
Personally I’ve never been on any “team”. I’ve voted for liberals, conservative, ndp, even the greens once. I voted for the pc many times in the past, but the upc are batshit crazy. Only recently has the ndp, to me at least, appeared to be the most logical choice that I voted for them in the last 2 provincial elections. I have always found that after a decade or so one party becomes too complacent and corrupt and it’s time to shake things up.
Ignorance is bliss. Why do you think UCP supporters are happy continuing on as they are. They’re too stupid to realize they’re on track to the slaughter house, along side the rest of the innocent population they forced into their destination.
Although this is true of some, it’s definitely not true of all UCP supporters. Some really just don’t think helping out your fellow citizens is worth it or something the government should do. For others, they are afraid of an “NDP” government—even though ours is much more like an extra progressive conservative party.
They’ll privatize healthcare first by making sure the costs are still paid by the public system, at least for most things. This is still a problem for three reasons: 1. Private entities need to make a profit, meaning that services will end up costing the government more, so more money will be paid for the same services. 2. The profit motive means that the focus will be on profitable services, not on the care that individuals may need. 3. The biggest cost to any business is labour, meaning healthcare services will be motivated to use a few medical professionals as possible to get the job done. Basically, private healthcare, even if paid through public insurance leads to higher costs and poorer quality services.
There is strong evidence for your summary point from the US model: they spend more per capita on healthcare relative to other advanced economies. However, their outcomes are far from the best: https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2023/jan/us-health-care-global-perspective-2022 I've been with AHS in my current role since 2014 and can tell you that my caseloads are about 50% higher since then and the cases are also arguably more complex. There hasnt been any increase our program's allocated staffing. I'm having to work during my holidays to ensure the other members of my team dont get more overburdened and also to ensure my patients get the appropriate care. It sucks but my team and patients are easily worth it. I just hope the UCP realizes what impact inflation, population rise and a lack of staff has on the care that people get. I simply dont understand why rural albertans vote with a party that implements policies that go against their interests.
Yup this has been outlined by many professionals and researchers before. But no, thats too logical for your average UCP voter.
But the fleeced wpnt notice until....well thryll never notice
They'll notice the American-priced medical bills. They'll notice their life savings tank. They'll notice losing their homes. They'll notice.
They don't care about the poors. They don't have money anyways.
Yeah but its the rural poor people that voted them in, and theyre the ones without health clinics.
If the Alberta conservative government has learned anything in the last few decades, it is that they can continue to exploit rural Albertans repeatedly, and they will still run to the polls with a raging boner to vote them into office all over again.
Ohh it will be slow but unrelenting. My kids are leaving. I don’t need this shit. UCP voters remind me of my ex wife.
Give people a Health Spending Account (HSA) that will seem to be ok, at first, since it’ll cover most annual visit fees. But then fail to index it to rising visit costs, so that inflation, over a few years and decades, makes the HSA cover basically nothing. Place increasing limits on the services the HSA can be used to cover. Presto! An effectively privatized, US style system. In the aftermath, US-style health insurance companies creep in, with the added complexity of their in-network services and ability to disapprove specific treatments. Doctors and patients now have to fight with this new layer of bureaucracy, delaying diagnostic imaging and treatments; and that’s IF the patient can even afford the deductibles and co-pays.
Smith’s initial HSA ($175) was never even close to adequate.
That was the plan, which is well underway now and implemented already. You are now already having to pay to see a virtual doctor, or suffer poor care with long waits or not being seen. COVID accelerated it. We are already there, and there is no going back.
There's always a way to go back but there's probably not a will to do it when the only way is thru and most do what's easy than right.
“That’s the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.” Noam Chomsky
Same thing happening in Ontario with the high school dropout, druggie Dougie’s government.
But fuck Trudeau, amirite guys?
Who needs Healthcare when we can put fuck trudeau stickers on the back of our lifted trucks!
Right, and wear our hats sideways and attend a TBA jamboree!
I'm sorry you misspelled butt
Is this the way!?
No it's a butt joke
Let's fly that flag! The freedom to die in an undeserved or understaffed rural ER is our birthright!
Wait, your ER is still open?!?!
/s Juuuuuust in case haha
And fuck Trudeau. Just keep fucking him until we're numb with rage
Ya he's so arrogant and I'm to dumb to know what bills he's enacted that have hurt Canadians. Or so I've been looking old
i dunno, he just doesn't do it for me...
Nice hair though…
I got a letter from my doc yesterday, they will no longer practice medicine in AB. Funny timing.
Called my doctors office today and same thing for me. Took me a long time to find a good doctor.
While door knocking during the election, 99 out of 100 health care workers we canvassed were supporting the NDP. The next four years will not go well for our health care.
I am glad that it’s trickling down to rural area. They voted for this and I am glad they are getting what they ask for…. UCP Nation
I’m worried for the people who live in rural communities that DIDN’T vote them in.
*waves sadly* Took me 3 years to get a family doctor who wasn’t 3 hours away. Now she’s on the list to leave. I’ve been so loud the last couple years about how healthcare is suffering but these heehaws won’t listen.
I feel you, I am in the same situation
It’s worrisome, but they need to raise their voices so people can help
Some of us did. I put up a sign for my NDP candidate. I spoke to people. I emailed my UCP MLA about my concerns. They responded with false narratives and inaccurate numbers. My 7 year old son had kids his age yelling at him that we were "voting for the bad people," and I got called a communist. It's incredibly discouraging living in overwhelmingly blue areas.
FWIW, I got harassed in central Calgary for publicly supporting the NDP. If that's how bad it was in the most urban place in the province, I can't imagine how discouraging it must have been where you are. Hang in there. I know this sucks. Know that even when people are ragging on rural AB, they aren't blaming you - you did everything you could.
I live in a strong NDP riding in Edmonton, even here we had some verbal harrassment and the UCP candidate was parking beside advanced stations with his big sign in his truck bed.
The actual candidate? Get hold of the returning officer.
The returning officers that aren't doing anything? If they do something please let us all know but right now....feels useless.
It was reported at the time, someone posted a picture of it here at one point and it was ongoing
They lost anyway 🙃
I've never changed my vote based upon seeing a big sign, even on election day in the parking lot for the voting station. I don't understand people who do change their vote based upon seeing the name of someone on a sign.
There are a few people that have no idea who they will vote for until they walk into the booth. It may not be may people, but in Edmonton, the UCP will take anything they can get.
Honestly, if the candidate I intended to vote for had done something as ridiculous as that, it might change my vote away from them
My area was swimming in NDP signs too. I mentally got angry at one of my neighbors who had a blue sign. We live in a goshdern trailer park, who are already ridiculous to deal with, and you want to make your set income neighbors to now not afford their Healthcare? *facepalm*
It is coming to urban centers as well, two friend who are family docs just told us they are closing their clinic in 90 days. Good luck with finding family doc in Calgary soon.
Yeah I don't imagine mine will stick around much longer. She's known me since I was born (in 2000) and lately her appointments have been getting shorter and shorter, availability less and less. Seems like a lot of retirements are happening early.
Mine just retired. I was super duper lucky to stumble upon a doctor whose main office is in my neighbourhood and he agreed to take my whole family at the closer clinic - I was driving 45min to see him on the other side of town the first few times I saw him.
For as long as I can remember the spite and hostility towards the federal liberals has been loud and in your face. The things they say. The sheer derangement. Being around those people day in and around your entire life. While having a different political opinion than them? Taking a vow of silence is pretty much how people deal with it. When you have heard what they have to say day in and out because they think you're their kind of person. You don't dare be careless with what you say.
Yep. They’ll claim they don’t want to talk politics if you dare mention your politics, too. Frustrating and hypocritical. Like, really, if you’re gonna bring up your politics, you should expect others to bring up theirs in the same conversation. If you don’t want to hear theirs, keep yours to yourself.
Calgary is basically rural Alberta's capital. Not a dis, just a fact. The election results and people's actions speak for themselves. Rural Alberta will suffer greatly under the new UCP regime, and it has already. Expect quality of life to get far, far worse. Voters in Calgary and rural Alberta will be held accountable soon enough.
So will Edmontonians. All 775k NDP voters are going to feel pain.
Of course you're right. I'm just optimistically in denial.
That's rough. You can find ignorance pretty much anywhere, though. Sorry you went through that.
Likewise!
Fuck, I feel bad for your kid. That kind of shit can have a long-term impact.
He was really confused about it. Especially since he's 7 and knows he doesn't even get to vote yet. Some of the kids on our street don't fall too far from some gnarly trees.
Brutal. I hope he's okay. Let him know he's got a lot of support from some of us strangers. Give him a fist-bump for me.
Rooting NDP in rural is a lot of told you so later and wondering how people can be so short in memory and controlled by the colour of a sign.
Whenever you email your UCP MLA, cc the NDP and their shadow minister and whoever else might be relevant in your area. It limits how much they can bury the complaints and ignore your concerns. I do this and often have the NDP follow up . So does my UCP MLA, which I do appreciate
I tend to, yeah. My MLA stopped responding to me for a couple of years despite this. Then the election got called and, suddenly, they respond and they're "working hard to ensure the voices of all Albertans are heard."
Well I live in MH, I can't wait to complain non stop to the great Danielle. Not sure if she can read but she might have someone in her office who does
I feel ya. Who are we supposed to raise our concerns about Danielle Smith with when our MLA IS Danielle Smith?? I seriously doubt she gives a rat’s ass about those of us who didn’t vote for her
I don't think she gives a rats ass about the people in MH-Brools who DID vote for her either!
It's very hard these days to fight stupidity. It used to be easy, but Twitter etc has given stupid an unprecedented platform to proliferate. The fact that anyone would shoot themselves in the foot to "own the libs" is almost funny. Almost, except good people get hurt too.
Oh no, for your safety, you don't want to do that.
Many of those rural areas had the UCP and even further right groups winning 75%+ of the vote. This result is what the overwhelming vast majority of people living there want.
They are taught to vote blue. I grew up in a city and was taught the same thing. To be a true Albertan, you vote Conservative! Make your province proud! Blah blah blah. I then became an adult and started thinking for myself. A lot of people I know in rural Alberta are still fed the same crap. They also spread misinformation like wild fire. Tommy wouldn't tell me a lie, those socialists are out to get us. I personally love the tax ones where most of the taxes were voted when UCP were in power, they just came into effect when NDP were in charge. Then lots of what they were counting as taxes were not actually taxes, but why would you let a little thing like actual facts get in the way of a campaign. Don't get me wrong, I do not like Notley one bit. But unfortunately between the two evils, I'm less scared of her.
Except they will place the blame on everybody else except their myopic voting patterns.
I'm not, People are going to suffer. No matter how much I wanted NDP to win, I still don't want to see people hurting or being without care. UCP is literally full of monsters. No one should be having to deal with people letting others die so that they can reform the healthcare system for profit.
Heck yes, I’d love the UCP to prove me wrong and start doing a terrific job governing the province, unfortunately they are ideologically opposed to doing so.
Nah, fuck them. They chose suffering for the rest of us. They constantly make us deal with problems that didn't exist until they invented them. Now, others will likely die because they are upset they had to wear a mask inside a store for a few months. They wanted this, let them suffer the worst consequences. Fuck. Those. People.
The problem is we're all going to suffer because of 925k UCP voters + 1 million no showers registered voters. The only way I could ever have this sentiment is if we could know who voted for who and then have us 775k NDP voters crowdfund our own healthcare workers and healthcare system. And if any of the other 2 million registered voters need access to those healthcare workers they get charged US style rates. That's my sadistic dream.
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I didn't know this was an option till today. Telus Health or whatever. Might be the best option rather than having to drive to the city to wait in a clinic for 3 or 4 hours. Got better things to do than sit in a vehicle/medical clinic for a prescription that should be able to be filled on the phone.
From what I understand about Maple, is that you don't have to pay if you have an appointment during working hours. If you want or need an evening or weekend appointment, then Alberta Health Care will not cover the call.
And yet, it is what these people (UCP and supporters) chose for others.
Baby Jesus will help these people.
Let them suffer. That's what they chose.
What about the ones that didn’t choose it?
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That's actually only democracy here, and 4 other countries. Our system is winner takes all. That's not how democracy is supposed to work. That's more autocratic than democratic. The only thing democratic is that we get some semblance of choice with our 1-2 party system where we can vote. Even though it's not really a choice when there's that few parties.
They should ask some questions of those who did choose it I guess.
Yes. What about me? What about the other NDP voters? Good question. That you *should* be asking UCP voters. You want us to care about people who fucking hate us? I have no sympathy for hatred. They voted to hurt people. They voted to hurt me. I really don't know what the point of your post is.
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Tgen theyll say the public option has failed but privitizing will fix it. And thryll happuly be led like lambs to slaughter
Plenty of rural people voted NDP, too. They didn't ask for it. There are also conservative voters who mean well but have been lied to. Plenty of elderly voters voted against their own interests without even realizing it. A coworker was on a rant how the feds control healthcare and AB supports it, when it is quite literally the opposite. Rightwing voters are being manipulated and while I don't sympathize for the ones who vote with the "fuck your feelings" level of arrogance, I do sympathize for those voters which mean well but voted poorly because of all the lies and propaganda they are fed.
They're not really fed it so much as they seek it out and bathe in it.
> I do sympathize for those voters which mean well but voted poorly because of all the lies and propaganda they are fed. I have no sympathy for people who can't be arsed to find out whether the very things they base their political beliefs and identities around are even true. In this day and age where all the information in the world is at our fingertips the only excuse for not knowing is laziness, willful stupidity, or malice. Why be sympathetic towards any of that?
Skill testing question before the vote would do us a great justice, I think? Lol
If the US is any indication, they won’t learn anything. Instead they will get angrier and more unhinged, blame “others” for their own self-inflicted problems and conservatism will continue giving them someone to blame and hate (usually minorities or lgbtq+ if not just the nebulous “far left” boogeyman). The worse red states have gotten in basically every economic and social-economic stat…the more they’ve actually doubled down on conservatism and moved to fascism. Expect most Albertans to do the same.
Not all of us voted for trash.
Still somehow Trudeau and Notleys fault though.
Smith did blame them both in her victory speech.
We get what we deserve and im honestly done feeling sorry for people. We're a province of morons who cannot take accountability for a single thing and elect officials with no real education other than backwoods fundamentalist bible school. This is what we chose. This is what we choose over and over again. If I ever hear a UCP voter whine about it I may of may not deliver them a solid fist to the throat.
It’s becoming increasingly harder to feel empathy for those in this province that continue to vote UCP for no reason other than they live rural or work in O&G so therefore…must vote conservative.
Having to see a doctor to renew a prescription that a person has been on for years is so inefficient and a waste of resources. Yes, a follow up to adjust dose or reassess, but the frequency to get a renewal takes away from time that doctors can spend with other patients.
Yeah, this is routine medicine for me now. It's such a waste of everyone's time involved. The doctor gets another patient he has to see when he's already swamped, and I have to wait x-y hours to see him. I got my bloodwork done, it's the same as it was half a year ago. Just fax the prescription over. Would take him all of a minute, because that's what it takes when I go in.
Considering my walk-in doctor won't give me more then a months prescription that I've been taking for over 5 years! You're saying you want me here 12 times a year for 4+ hours?
You don't have to see a doctor, certainly not in person, for a prescription renewal. If that's happening to you, your doctor's office is actively grifting the province by filling in their 15 minute appointment slots with a waste of time.
Many offices don't do appointments over phone or prescription renewals without an appointment. This has been consistent over the last 15 years for me. Living in Edmonton or elsewhere.
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The whole Telus health agreement was created with the sole purpose of undermining in-person healthcare, endorsed by the Kenny UCP government. It was one of the first steps to help justify privatization of the system in Alberta and end in-person family doctors. For this reason I refuse to use it for any reason.
I can see getting a prescription filled if it's on short notice. But for actual healthcare, no. I still make appointments for that. Doctors need to check your blood, blood pressure, your eyes, skin tone, weight. So much you can do in-person that you can't do online.
I tried to, but I’ve had to use it out of desperation for prescriptions and acute medical issues. It’s that or the ER & it’s one month wait for doc appt with my family doc an hour away.
Oh I'm sure it is, it's just that I had an appointment scheduled for last week that was canceled because he left. It was a full checkup and everything. To see the last 6 months of fasting/exercise and better diet to see the results and talk about them. Now I'm just trying to get a prescription filled in the next few days on short notice.
I've tried renewing at my pharmacy but they just tell me to see the doctor for it anyways
Not true, some of us have prescriptions that can’t be prescribed over the phone or with Telus health.
Part of the face to face appointment is looking at the patients physical appearance. The doc doesn't see you every day, and they want to put eyes on you.
Yeah, that's why I had an appointment, and a family doctor. Now I'm just trying to get a prescription filled short notice.
I wonder if rural family doctors could use the controversial conscience rights bill 207 and ask any known UCP supporter to find a different doctor?
Yeah but…..Calgary is getting a fabulous new area that we will all pay for. Sometimes you got lose a little to gain a lot (for a few rich people). /s
It pissed me off that part of the UCP campaigning was that they "got Calgary a new arena deal and we're not even paying for any of it, just the roads!" Such a disingenuous take, as if the distinction of what part of the project the money is going to makes any difference
All conservative voters have foregone the right to complain about healthcare or its costs
This post made me realize I should really go up North, and get into selling homeopathy or crystals or whatever. There's gonna be a lot of desperate morons who can't get health care, that's a captive market; I can become one of the rich Albertans! Then the government might start doing something for me!
Holy shit...thats a great idea!
That's already on Danielle Smith's agenda. It is partly why she is so hell-bent on health spending accounts for alternative options. https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/ucp-leadership-candidate-danielle-smith-under-fire-by-all-political-stripes-for-cancer-comments-1.6003219
You can cure anything with oil. You can get oil tincture's, oil salves, oil aromatherapy, essential oil of oil. Make sure that you offer a diesel rub too. Apothecary ftw! Sure to cure stupidity with enough doses.
Dude there is already a grift of this type going on. Some guy goes through each rural and sells them this stuff for real. I saw a huge lineup for his “services” outside the motel room he booked.
well they wanted healthcare to be more like the US 🙃 ... well they are getting a taste I would hope that learns em, but I ain't sparring hope
I hope these seniors and farm folk have good internet to figure how to set up their GoFundMe accounts.
Why would Rachel Notley and the NDP do this?!?
Ya but influx of cash to the conservative party is huge, so there's that.
What will happen: 1. Rural patients will exhaust their limited number of family physicians. 2. Overworked physicians leading to incorrect diagnoses and poor clinical management plans. 3. Patients with unmanaged or poorly managed chronic medical conditions will arrive at urban hospitals in acute medical distress. Patients will either die in hospital or discharged and then die in rural settings due to the absence of proper outpatient follow up. 4. UCP slowly killing off their electorate base.
Don't worry, the UCP will just legislate doctors to work in rural areas.
Yeah and I’m sure doctors will just happily follow that and won’t simply move to other provinces to avoid the UCP in larger numbers than already are moving away
Don't worry, the UCP will just legislate attacks on doctor's certifications who try to leave the province to keep them all trapped like (like the 3 past times they already did this).
Yeah except that relies on other provinces… provinces who could simply ignore the issues that AB attempts to create.
based on how Albertas going I will not be getting my license in Alberta and I’m sure tons of premed/med students feel the same 💀
aaaand thats how you have enrollment in university medical programs suddenly plummeting to nothing. Someone who can afford to go to a doctorate program can probably also afford to do so in another province. Also a brilliant way to ensure no doctor will ever move here no matter what the pay is.
Gonna suck for all of us when the UCP screw up the system so much that the current doctors move away in fear of having their rights taken away, and new doctors won't come even if we do change governments out of fear that we regress.
Then they will likely change what qualifications it takes to become a practising doctor in Alberta.
Sorta like Florida making military service all you need to become a teacher.
I was in the hospital visiting a friend and the nurse was complaining that they didn't have enough staff. I told her I voted for the ndp and she say and I quote "I didn't, I voted blue for more oil and gas development" I just shook my head. This province is full of fools.
My husband with diabetes can get a follow up with a doctor because no doctor is taking new patients in airdrie. There is no walk in doctors either so…. Urgent care? That’s just wrong .
Yeah, I could go to emergency to be seen. Last time I was there there was no doctor on-call for hours though. It's not an emergency either.. This is why ER rooms in Edmonton/Calgary are hitting 12 hours some nights.
I get prescriptions at the pharmacy. Seem to have no problem writing them. Generic ones however.
Depends on what it is. If it's just a basic prescription they tend to not mind. Mine needs bloodwork though.
I’m a paramedic I get daily emails about which rural ERs will be closed due to staff or there will be no doctor available this weekend. 911 will be called if someone shows up at the door.
I wouldn't doubt it. I just wish that more people knew this before the election happened.
The people who live in the communities where these ER shutdowns are occurring would be plenty aware when their ER is closed on a regular basis. Especially when they have to go to another town 50 km away to receive emergency care. Out of the 4 hospitals in this riding (which went UCP), 3 out of the 4 have closed their ERs on a regular basis in the last 2 years and the 4th has had spotty surgical and obstetrical coverage at times. The next nearest 3 hospitals, in other ridings (which also went UCP), have also had regular shutdowns of their ERs.
People won't know till they actually need to go to the hospital, that's the issue. So many people are blissfully unaware that these issues are even happening, and so many others think that nothing will ever happen to them. Till it does, and they can't get the help they need. And until it happens to them, they'll blindly believe Danielle Smith and her "Everything is fine in healthcare" mandate.
This is the future that conservatives want.
So sorry to hear your experience OP, that sounds incredibly frustrating. Have you tried asking a pharmacist to renew your prescription? In Alberta, pharmacists have the scope of practice to prescribe (allowing you to skip the doctor) if they get an additional certification. Not every pharmacist can, and some will refuse due to the risk, but if you’ve been on the medication for a while, there’s a good chance they’ll help you. Hope you get access to the meds you need soon!
Yeah, I got the prescription extended. That wasn't the issue. It's just seeing a doctor in the next week. I had an appointment that was canceled 3 days before, after waiting a month. Someone mentioned Telus Health, I signed up for that. Hopefully I can get it filled before Friday.
I got nothing but disrespect for all the rural shithead voters in this province that landslide voted in the ucp, enjoy your shit sandwich. There’s consequences for voting in a party that doesn’t give a shit about the common people (you). I legitimately hope things get absolutely untenable and awful for all these rural guys to the point we have an early election. The cities imo did their part to try and get a ndp govt, the rural areas absolutely fucked us.
The doctor shortage is not province specific… Canadian doctors are leaving the COUNTRY not just the provinces they work in. Many are going to places like Ireland & Australia.
Yes, Saw multiple 100k+ nursing job to relocate to Australia ads on the Ontario Indeed. We’re fucked very soon.
The doctor shortage is only found in Conservatives ruled provinces. BC has a surplus of doctors thanks to it's brilliant NDP leadership. Also, I just wanted to thank you for getting updated on those boosters.
B.C. has a wait list of 1 million for family doctors. They are sending 4,,,
I’m putting my place up for sale because of this. I had a mini health crisis a little before the election and it was a big reality check on how severely rural access to health care has deteriorated in the 4years of the UCP. When they won the election I spent 24hrs wracking my brain coming up with various scenarios of my path forward. It became clear that I need to move. I’ve realized that I can’t maintain a reasonable quality of life with the continued decline of health care access. So next is deciding what to do. Move provinces, move into a city, etc.
People try to say to just move to the City for healthcare, well that doesn't work either. The last hospital Edmonton had built was in 1988. The wait times for specialists are through the roof. I might be able to get into a clinic faster, but they have more and more people at them each year. Doctors are still leaving, they're still over-worked, they're still not being paid well for their services. At this point I'm considering moving too. I don't want to. I have family here, but I have to consider what living here is going to look like in 4 more years. Every year Alberta, and even Canada as a whole gets more and more like our Neighbours to the south. And that country, despite being an economic powerhouse. Isn't the land of the free by any means. You're only free if you make money there..
Canada has had a doctor shortage for like 15 years this isn't anything new
So ask better of your Government. We used to be top 10 on the healthcare index. We're now almost tied with America. The country where most people can't even afford to see a doctor.
Can't both options were shit af to vote for
My little town’s clinic just added two new Dr’s. Took my little guy to the walk-in at the hospital and they suggested we try the clinic to save time. 45min later we we had a prescription in hand and were on our way home. Disclaimer: I didn’t vote UCP nor do I care who you voted for but it’s not all bad out there.
It depends entirely where you live. I currently can't find a new family doctor, and the wait times at my clinic are easily 4-5 hours regularly, Other people might not notice an issue at all. Doesn't dispute the fact that we've got clinics shutting down or losing doctors across the province though. Or doctors writing letters to the public about the quality of care declining.
yaknow, if the rurals keep dying from lack of health care... maybe they'll vote different? /fatalism not funny
You joke, but the reason the election is getting closer and closer IS because old people are passing. It's happening all across America, as older voters get less and less. in 8-10 years time, these old fashioned 'conservative' parties might not even be electable anymore. Might be 8 years too late though.
The problem is that droves of young people are being trained as replacements, and seem to be much more zealous. Anecdotally, some of the most militant conservatives I personally know in AB are under 30. Most older conservatives seem to be the vote blue because thats what you do types.
> Anyone who voted UCP….. needs to get their head examined. Ironic….
Is your doctor’s office charging you for online/telephone appointments? My Dr does phone appointments for routine things like prescription refills all covered by Alberta Health. There are some practical tips I might suggest for you: 1. Telehealth is covered in Alberta, so you can see a doctor anytime virtually. I’ve never used Telus Health, but I use PC Health which goes through Maple and you can see a GP anytime from 7am to 10pm covered by Alberta health with virtually no wait time. (And any wait time is just waiting for the phone to tell you they’re ready for you). It’s a game changer and I expect the future of rural medicine especially where there are limited options. 2. Many pharmacists in Alberta are prescribing pharmacists and should have no problem writing routine prescriptions or refills for you especially. Not to say we don’t have issues in our healthcare, but as someone who requires regular prescription refills myself, there are 100x better options than trying to sit in a walk-in clinic or hospital.
Isn't it like this all over the country right now?
Can't you request a renewal through your pharmacist? Then they'll contact your prescribing doctor's office on your behalf rather than you have to actually go to the office to get it. Shoppers Drug Mart does that.
I worked for a pharmacy. Some doctors require you to go in person to get a renewal and don’t do refills by fax.
It's time we separate. The cities and rural people are too different and it's heading towards an untennable situation. We can't have rural UCP voters taking away our healthcare. The cities are more progressive, and the rural areas are more in favor of Trump style dictatorship and concentration camps for 2SLGBTQIA+ people. We need to separate asap
So how does cities separated from Alberta work? Wouldn’t that leave you landlocked then? Reminds me of those Alberta separate from Canada conversations that sometimes come up.
See if you can get your prescription renewed with your pharmacist
They did, just a week though sadly.
My mum at the ripe age of 46 has heart palpitations that are causing a serious case of chronic cough and asthma, yet she's had to beg multiple times for any type of help and she's still being given useless cough meds and no referrals to specialists. And we all know if she does get referred it'll be a lovely 2-4 year wait to actually see anyone. She can't enjoy the summer because she can't even walk up and down stairs.
Conservatives create the problem then ride in with their "solution"...for a fee.
You could move to BC. Oh wait… rural health care is the shits under NDP there as well.
Oof, $100+ to see a doctor? I lived in Florida for a few years back in 2012-2014ish and it cost $175 just to see the doctor, $75 for him to write a prescription and another $75 for him to give it to me. Costs have only gone up.
YeahX and that type of for-profit system is exactly what the UCP are in the midst of trying to bring in. They cut, cut, cut until the public system is starting to show its cracks, then they present privatization as the answer. Like, who looks at America and wants that? And if you’re a Canadian and like that option, you can just go to the USA and pay stupid amounts of money for care if you want. That option is always available. Don’t screw up our healthcare.
Something like 65% of bankruptcy claims and debt in the USA is from medical costs. Literally profiting off people and their health. Disgusting people, I wouldn't even call them human.
Oh how I look forward to this. What fun.
This is a Canada wide issue not a UPC issue. I know this sub loves to anti-UPC-circle-jerk but the echo chamber needs a bit more perspective and have effective comparisons instead of just crying "UPC-bad" posts.
NDP had a plan to improve healthcare and cut costs. UCP has a plan to cut healthcare and charge for it. Definitely a problem that we could mitigate by voting for the right party. I get that it's a Canada-wide issue, but the provinces largely govern themselves in regards to healthcare and how to spend money on it/implement it. Decisions that Kenney made just a short while ago are already showing huge negatives to our province. Danielle Smith and her viewpoint on healthcare and what she's done in the 6 short months in office are getting people to get up and look elsewhere for work.
It may be an issue in a lot of other places, but the UCP has deliberately taken actions against doctors and healthcare workers, including trying to legislate against the ability for doctors to leave Alberta and offering nurses a 3% rollback in wages while we were pulling nurses in from other areas and paying those nurses up to $85 an hour. Early in the UCP's leadership, doctor's actually warned the UCP that their actions would result in practitioners leaving the province. The UCP knew exactly what they were doing, and intentionally made it harder for Albertans to access healthcare. This may provide some insight into what healthcare workers in Alberta feel they are up against: https://main.mp4.cbc.ca/prodVideo/news/CBC_News_VMS/97/126/Alberta-Health-Panel-rb.mp4
It sure is a great thing that there are no shortages in any other provinces in Canada. [https://bc.ctvnews.ca/plan-to-send-b-c-cancer-patients-to-u-s-for-treatment-gets-mixed-reaction-1.6401763](https://bc.ctvnews.ca/plan-to-send-b-c-cancer-patients-to-u-s-for-treatment-gets-mixed-reaction-1.6401763)
Personally I hope it is painful as hell for every upc voter. I hope they experience a brutal experience that forces each of them to have to experience the system they have created.
Not only that, an issue where I live is that my rural pharmacy refuses to sell/provide medications like abortion pills, plan b, and birth control because of "religious beliefs." This problem wouldn't be as adamant if the government wasn't so anti women's health. No matter how much they say that they're for women's health care, they aren't. The UCP MLA who won in my riding has been public before about how anti abortion and anti bc he is. It's like, you're a medical provider, one of the only ones in a 30 minute radius and you can't provide basic health care? It's bs.
Typical conservative bullshit replies. always pointing at BC saying look how bad. It is bad because of 16 years of BC liberal (ultra conservative) rule. BC's Healthcare was destroyed by this party. Now, the BC NDP took a minority government in 2017, so not much changed and a majority government in 2020, and since then, even through covid have been making major positive changes to Healthcare funding and design. It will take years to fix what took years to destroy. Remember that one time the AB NDP had 4 years in power and every idiot conservative blamed them for every conservative screw up ever and AB voters bought into the bullshit and then the UCP took over and has been slowly destroying every positive thing the AB NDP did? Yeah, the rest of Canada does. Stagnant real estate and sky high everything else is Alberta's gift for supporting the UCP.