Today, with the pandemic, Susan Slade, vice president of the union Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) shows that the health system is more overwhelmed than ever. Lack of personnel and compulsory overtime precipitated the “wildcat” strike of October 26, as did the provincial government budget cuts providing for the saving of 11,000 jobs in the public health system in the midst of the pandemic.
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Gabrielle Beaupre
Susan Slade indicates that due to the shortage of staff in any of the institutions that offer health care, health workers can work up to 16 hours a day and sometimes even up to 24 hours. “In hospitals, we cannot let people [dans les institutions] without giving care [de santé] and now, with the pandemic, it’s even worse ”.
She says healthcare workers are continually trying to be their best when faced with difficult working conditions while trying not to catch COVID-19 and bring it back to their places of residence.
“The big problems we’ve seen are the fact that healthcare workers are nervous that they and their colleagues can contract or be exposed to COVID while on the work floor,” says Susan Slade.
She adds, without specifying a figure, that health workers are exhausted by the pandemic. “There is actually a huge burnout rate among healthcare workers and the fact that they have to [obligatoirement] wearing protective equipment during all working hours is tiring and contributes to their exhaustion ”.
Budget cuts
The government cuts in health announced by the government last October, to recover 6 million dollars per year, provide for the elimination of 11,000 jobs. “No primary doctor or nurse position will be affected during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Alberta Health Minister Tyler Shandro said. According to Susan Slade, 450 orderlies and nurses positions could be affected, but it is mainly food service, housekeeping and laundry employees who are affected.
Susan Slade says, “They really run a hospital. There is no nurse who can do her job without these workers. They have a fairly essential role ”. The vice-president of AUPE adds that the government is more interested in making profits than in providing services.
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A political perspective
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Frédéric Boily, specialist in Canadian politics and full professor at Saint-Jean Campus, explains that there is “an economic consensus”. “The health care system in Alberta is expensive compared to other provinces, that is to say a lot of expenditure per capita and that we must find ways to make it less expensive for the whole population. population. It is in this context that the question of privatization takes place ”.
The specialist in Canadian politics goes on to say that the Kenney government has only continued in the same logic proposed in its electoral platform by announcing its cuts to the health system. Frédéric Boily interprets while the pandemic context has not been taken into account. “The government’s interest is to control public finances and to control them, it is necessary to reduce expenditure rather than seek additional income”.
In addition, he mentions that the health system has been brought to the public eye due in particular to the dispute between the Minister of Health and the doctors concerning the introduction of late measures to fight the pandemic in the second. wave.
“When you put all that in place, you realize that there was a failure in communication and a failure in the way the government handled the second wave. He could have managed that more quickly, he did not do it and therefore, that is why all the announcements, that is to say cuts in health and the privatization of certain services, go so well very bad [auprès de la population] ».
When contacted, Alberta Health did not respond to our requests when this article was printed.
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