EDMONTON - Following the UCP Government announcement that Recovery Alberta will be fully operational on September 1st,, Public Interest Alberta is raising the alarm about how this decision will throw employees, patients, and Albertans into chaos.The progressive advocacy organization is urging the government to pause the transition.
“Transferring more than 10,000 employees, managing more than 3,000 beds and almost 5,000 people in corrections is not something any organization can do safely in a matter of mere months. Danielle Smith’s ideological experiment with Recovery Alberta is a slap in the face to health care professionals and it must be stopped,” said Bradley Lafortune, Executive Director of Public Interest Alberta. “This transition from AHS of thousands of employees and thousands of Albertans’ care is set to make the current mental health and drug poisoning crisis even worse. Struggling Albertans will die. Health care professionals will lose sleep over whether their jobs are secure.”
“What is happening is part of the same old playbook of austerity, but it's going to cost health care professionals their careers and it’s going to cost Albertans their lives,” said Lafortune. “The hasty and ill-planned transition to Recovery Alberta will sow chaos in our health care. It also sets the stage for more privatization and a decrease in the quality of care, as Recovery Alberta moves to de-skill and de-professionalize the services received by Albertans.”
“The real prescription for the mental health and drug poisoning crisis is stronger public health care with a renewed and qualified workforce,” said Lafortune. “Health professionals and advocates know what works, it’s well beyond time that the UCP government listens to them.”
