Alberta healthcare on verge of collapse

Thanks to Kenney's liberterian attitude to Covid-19, Alberta has almost twice as many active cases as the next largest caseload by province with 8,980 today compared to Ontario's 5,059, BC's 4,684, and Quebec's 4,542, thereby stretching the Alberta healthcare system close to the breaking point according to doctors. 

https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/epidemiological-summary-covid...

The Kenney government is now moving patients to other care settings to deal with the overburden placed on hospitals by its refusal to follow public health guidelines and instead on keeping businesses open at all costs, including deadly ones. It is also cutting non-emergency surgeries by 60%.

Alberta will move more patients to other care settings to free up space in hospitals so overrun with COVID-19 cases that some children's surgeries, cancer surgeries and transplant operations are being cancelled.

Dr. Verna Yiu, the president and CEO of Alberta Health Services, says there may be 200 potential patients that could be moved into continuing care in the next week or two.

Yiu said intensive care beds are 130 per cent over capacity, and critically ill patients are being directed to overflow wards.

"We are experiencing significant capacity challenges. We continue to do all that we can to increase capacity, particularly in our ICUs, where pressure on our staff, physicians and resources is intense," Yiu said Thursday.

Non-emergency surgeries were cut by as much as 60 per cent provincewide last week and the Calgary health zone has cancelled all non-urgent procedures for the rest of the week. ...

Alberta has averaged more than 1,000 daily COVID-19 cases for two weeks. There are now 679 people in hospital with the illness, 154 of whom are in intensive care.

Yiu said there are 231 people getting critical care when you add in the non-COVID patients. Even with the extra beds, the ICU capacity is still high at 87 per cent.

Almost 90 per cent of the COVID patients in ICU are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated, and Yiu urged more Albertans to get the jab.

"Health care is a finite resource and we need the help of all Albertans to protect it," she said. ...

Premier Jason Kenney has staunchly refused to mandate proof of vaccination for anyone who wants to use non-essential services such as restaurants, clubs and sports events.

The premier has questioned whether so-called vaccine passports violate health privacy, but said his government will make available a downloadable QR code for those who need to show proof of vaccination.

A number of Alberta businesses and sports teams are demanding or will be demanding patrons show proof.

https://www.prpeak.com/coronavirus-covid-19-national-news/alberta-to-mov...

The local news video below warns that the Northern Health Region of Alberta is on the verge of collapse with Covid out of control, according to nurses and doctors there, many of them quitting because of total burnout, thanks to the unvaccinated and Kenney's policies. 

https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=2278606

Alberta’s chief medical health officer, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, admitted today that " the decision to lift almost all COVID-19 public-health restrictions in early July set the province on the trajectory towards the current wave of the pandemic." She is part of the problem because she followed Kenney's directions on Covid when she knew as a medical professional what would almost certainly be the consequences. 

With a level of candour not seen at her public appearances, Dr. Deena Hinshaw told a Zoom meeting with Primary Care Network physicians Monday night that she regrets her role in creating the narrative that the pandemic was over.

“I feel very responsible for the narrative that has made it more complicated to try to put additional public health measures in place,” she said. “Whether or not it was my intention, what was heard at the end of July was, ‘COVID is over, we can walk away and ignore it,’ and that has had repercussions and I deeply regret how that has played out.”

Hinshaw also expressed regret over the decision to end most contact tracing but said it would be too difficult to ramp that back up during the fourth wave, in part because so many staff are needed in other places.

In May, Premier Jason Kenney announced a three-stage process for lifting COVID-19 restrictions, promising that the province was “open for summer.”

By July 1, along with rolling back most contact tracing outside of investigations in high-risk settings, the province had lifted the rules around indoor and outdoor social gatherings, as well as capacity limits in businesses, recreation, large events like concerts or sports, and other settings. The provincewide mask mandate was also lifted.

Hinshaw said that at the time, the level of vaccination that the province was seeing suggested it was “reasonable” to start “walking down that path.”...

“But of course, the expectations did not match reality, and very shortly after we started that endemic path, we could see already … within a couple of weeks that we weren’t seeing that decoupling that we expected and really had to shift and walk back. Clearly, we’re in a significant challenge right now with respect to our acute-care system,” she said.

Hinshaw said it’s clear the province is dealing with a “crisis.”

https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/alberta-covid-19-update-sept...

Kenney apologized for his Covid policies that have put the overloaded healthcare system at risk of collapse but didn't apologize for keeping things open in the summer. The question is how much impact this will have on O'Toole for wishy-washy vaccination policies and on Trudeau calling an election in the middle of the fourth Covid wave. Heh, business and elections before lives.

Premier Jason Kenney apologized for his government's recent COVID-19 response as he introduced a proof of vaccination program and implemented new restrictions for the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kenney started off the press conference by apologizing for moving Alberta too quickly from a pandemic to endemic based on provincial modelling.

"I know that we had all hoped this summer that we could put COVID behind us once and for all, that was certainly my hope and I said that very clearly," said Kenney. "It is now clear that we were wrong, and for that I apologize."

A reporter asked the premier to what degree the events that happened between July 1 and now were a reflection of his leadership, and if he would give Albertans more than "we were wrong, and I apologize."

"We were wrong in talking about moving this from pandemic management to endemic management in July and August. I frankly don't think we were wrong to lift public health restrictions in July we actually saw that case counts and the Delta variant to continue to stabilize and come down through most of July even after large public events."

However, Kenney stuck by his Open for Summer plan that eventually saw mounting cases and hospitalizations, and a slow vaccination uptick.

"I also think it's critically important to understand that at least in this society that you can't sustain serious intrusions into people's lives permanently. And so no, I don't apologize for this decision to relax public health restrictions in the summer supported by the data."

Kenney says that there would've been "massive" non-compliance and anger from people if they had maintained "lockdown-style policies" throughout the summer.

"Yes, I said a lot of optimistic things in the summer, because I think it is the job of a leader to convey a sense of hope and optimism, not a sense of despair and pessimism, and from the perspective of where we were in July there were good reasons to be hopeful and optimistic."

The reporter doubled down on his question, asking Kenney again if he thought his leadership failed between July 1 and now, if at all.

"I don't think this is about me, I think this is about protecting our hospitals, and we have to do what is necessary to do so."

Wednesday marked the most Albertans ever occupying ICU beds in the history of the province, with the CEO of AHS announcing it was asking neighbouring provinces for help managing the situation.

"I don't apologize for not maintaining lockdown-style policies permanently but I do apologize for having predicted we could be open for good."

University of Calgary associate professor Lorian Hardcastle says an apology from the premier would have shown Albertans that he’s capable of changing and approaching the pandemic differently than he has in the past.

"I think that people are really concerned about the lack of leadership; there's a perceived absence of the leaders in the past few weeks and I think that people wanted him to stand up and admit what they got wrong," said Hardcastle. "Perhaps not be so defensive about the Open for Summer plan."

Independent MLAs Drew Barnes and Todd Loewen are now calling on Jason Kenney to resign from leadership.

A statement reads: "Inconsistent and negligent management of the pandemic has destroyed public trust. For the good of the province, the Premier must immediately resign so that public trust can be restored."

Barnes and Loewen were kicked out of Kenney's caucus in May for openly challenging Kenney's health rules and leadership.

https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/i-apologize-kenney-says-alta-wrong-for-covid...

With Covid growing exponentially in Alberta, the Kenney government has established at Covid protocols that mean who gets to live and who dies if the system can no longer handle everyone. 

If COVID-19 pushes Alberta's health-care system past the breaking point, critical care will be reserved for patients with the greatest chance of survival, according to a government document that details how those life-and-death decisions would be made.

Physicians are bracing for the grim possibility of rationing care.

Premier Jason Kenney warned Wednesday, as he announced new restrictions, that the acute-care system could run out of staff and critical-care beds within 10 days.

The critical care triage protocol, a 52-page document developed by Alberta Health Services, describes how the health-care system will cope if intensive care units (ICUs) no longer have the resources to care for every critically ill patient.

Revised most recently in May of this year, the protocol has never been enacted but health-care workers are now being briefed on the document, in preparation for the worst. And provincial health officials continue to warn, Alberta's acute care system is teetering dangerously close to a collapse.

An average of 20 new COVID patients are admitted to ICU every day, said Dr. Verna Yiu, president and CEO of Alberta Health Services during a news conference Thursday. "I can not stress enough how serious the situation is in our hospitals," Yiu said. As of Thursday, Alberta had 268 patients in intensive care in a system set up for 173. ...

Phase 1 would be deployed if 90 per cent or more of Alberta's critical-care surge beds are in use — during what is described as a "major surge." ...

Phase 2, the highest level of triage, would be triggered if Alberta reaches the criteria for a "large-scale surge" — when critically-ill patient demand outstrips available beds, ventilators and human resources.

The framework outlines exclusion criteria — medical conditions that would mean the difference between treatment in the ICU or not.

These specialized departments care for a hospital's most ill patients, including advanced COVID-19 patients who require ventilators to survive. 

Under Phase 1, patients with life-threatening conditions such as severe dementia, severe burns, those who have suffered a massive stroke or are in a deep coma, may be denied entrance into the ICU. 

The barriers to treatment increase under Phase 2, with more stringent measurements applied based on the health and age of each patient. 

Staff untrained in critical care would be widely deployed in ICUs.

People over 60 with poor chances of survival  could be denied admission to the ICU. Only children with the most severe medical needs, such as organ failure, would be admitted to ICU under Phase 2. 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/emergency-covid-triage-alberta-1...

In desperate straits over Covid Alberta has asked Ottawa to airlift Covid patients to other provinces. Ottawa offered help before the election but Kenney waited, fueling speculation he wanted to avoid embarassing O'Toole who had supported Kenney's laissez-faire Covid policies. 

Alberta's UCP government is asking Ottawa for help to lessen pressure on the province's health-care system, which is overburdened with COVID-19 patients.

Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver formally requested aid and an immediate meeting with federal Public Safety Minister Bill Blair in a Tuesday letter.  He asked for the federal government to provide aero-medical evacuation capability to relocate patients out of Alberta, and intensive care unit (ICU) registered nurses and respiratory therapists to assist in Alberta's critical care response. 

"Federal assistance in these two areas has the potential to create significant relief to the health-care system," McIver wrote.

Alberta's ICU capacity is currently at 87 per cent, but without added surge beds — which health-care workers have said are not adequately staffed — the province would be at 169 per cent of its baseline capacity. 

There are 222 COVID-19 patients in the province's ICUs. There are nearly 1,000 Albertans in hospital with COVID-19, and the province has identified more than 20,900 active cases.

Surgeries have been cancelled across the province to free up health-care workers to deal with the crisis. 

Health Minister Tyler Shandro was notably not a signatory on the letter. The embattled minister was shuffled into another cabinet portfolio on Tuesday. Jason Copping is taking over the key cabinet position. ...

Blair said federal officials have offered help to their Alberta counterparts throughout the past week. "I have made it clear that when a request is received, it will be approved. We will work together to provide for the people across Alberta," he said in a statement posted to social media.

Duane Bratt, a political science professor at Calgary's Mount Royal University, said he believes the delay was a deliberate strategy."They were putting partisan political interests ahead of the health and wellbeing of Albertans. There's no other way of describing it," he said.

Alberta asked other provinces for help last week when it declared a state of public health emergency. Neighbouring provinces Saskatchewan and British Columbia had said they could not offer assistance due to demands on their own health-care systems, but distant provinces like Ontario have offered help. ...

In early summer, Kenney announced that COVID-19 was effectively defeated and that even if cases rose in the future, they could be accommodated by the health system. He said he was so sure COVID-19 was finished that he didn't envision needing a fallback plan, and accused journalists of fearmongering for discussing the possibility of a dangerous fourth wave.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-asks-ottawa-for-covid-19-...

The video in the url below discusses how the Covid crisis is leading to demands for Kenney to resign from both sides of the UCP caucus.

As COVID-19 rages through Alberta, intensive care units there are filling up with patients like never before, fuelling more calls for Premier Jason Kenney to step down over how he handled the crisis. As Heather Yourex-West explains, there are concerns a political shakeup would only make things worse.

https://globalnews.ca/video/8214104/growing-pressure-on-kenney-to-resign...

The Albertan healthcare system is in such desperate staits that it has called in the Red Cross and military for extra medical practioners thanks to Kenney's reckless treatment of Covid. 

The federal government says it will come to Alberta’s aid as the province’s hospitals face an overwhelming wave of COVID-19 patients.  Bill Blair, the federal minister of public safety and emergency preparedness, says Ottawa will help with Alberta’s request for more critical care medical staff and Armed Forces’ help airlifting patients to other provinces. “The Government of Canada will support the provincial government’s recent request and provide the necessary support,” Blair wrote in a statement posted on social media Thursday. The federal assistance includes a range of capabilities, including the deployment of (Canadian Armed Forces) medical resources and/or aeromedical evacuation capability, as well as the deployment of Canadian Red Cross resources.”

Alberta has asked for help from the federal government and from other provinces as it deals with a rise in COVID-19 cases that threatens the viability of the health system. Alberta Health Services said there are 310 patients in intensive care, the vast majority of whom have COVID-19. Of those with COVID-19 in critical care, most are not fully vaccinated or not vaccinated at all. This is the highest number of people in critical care in Alberta at any one time since the pandemic began in early 2020. The United Conservative Party government has scrambled to create extra critical care beds, effectively doubling the original baseline total of 173, and has redeployed staff to manage them.

The result is the mass cancellation of non-urgent surgeries across Alberta. Doctors are being briefed on how to decide who gets life-saving help and who doesn’t should remaining resources become depleted. There are more than 20,000 active COVID-19 cases and more than 1,000 people in hospital with the illness. Deaths are on the rise. There were 29 fatalities reported Tuesday and 20 more on Wednesday, including the first person under age 20.

In Calgary, Alberta’s Opposition NDP leader said it’s time Premier Jason Kenney hand over public health decisions related to the COVID-19 crisis to medical professionals. Rachel Notley said it has become clear that Kenney is more focused on his political survival than on the pandemic. “It never should have come to this,” Notley said. “Jason Kenney knew his plan wasn’t working as early as July and he did nothing. In fact, he left (on a vacation). All through August and into September the UCP refused to act while the crisis escalated. “Now all Albertans are suffering the consequences of the UCP’s collective inaction and ineptitude.”

Notley said sound public health decisions are being undermined by political compromises. She called for those decisions to be turned over to Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical health officer, backed by an independent scientific panel of advisers. “(Albertans) are demanding better leadership from their government to get through this pandemic. But instead of taking action to protect Albertans, Jason Kenney and the UCP seem to be laser-focused on protecting themselves,” said Notley.

Some United Conservative constituency associations are pushing for an immediate review of his leadership. Joel Mullan, the party’s vice-president in charge of policy, has openly called for Kenney’s resignation, saying the public and the party have lost trust.

https://www.interior-news.com/news/feds-to-provide-red-cross-armed-force...

ETA: Sixty ICU doctors  signed an open letter warning that Alberta hospitals do not have the resources to properly provide care to the rapidly growing number of ICU patients. As ICU capacity grows, staffing ratios per patient fall below the normal standard of care thereby increasing "the number of patients assigned to each nurse.” Alberta’s ICUs are running at well over double our normal capacity because of Covid and the ICU doctors warn the health system is "on the verge of collapse". Kenney, locked in an ideological view of freedom over lives, has refused to request them even though Covid the death rate since August 1st in Alberta and Saskatchewan is 2 to 4 times that of any of the other eight provinces. 

“Currently, Alberta ICUs are running at well over 150 per cent of normal capacity.”

That’s part of the message in a letter sent to all Albertans from 58 intensive care physicians who represent a section of the Alberta Medical Association (AMA).

The letter, released on Monday, goes on to say the province remains on the verge of a health system collapse.

“Currently, Alberta ICUs are running at well over 150 per cent of normal capacity.”

That’s part of the message in a letter sent to all Albertans from 58 intensive care physicians who represent a section of the Alberta Medical Association (AMA).

The letter, released on Monday, goes on to say the province remains on the verge of a health system collapse. ...

It came just one day after Alberta’s former chief medical officer of health co-wrote a letter pleading for the government to initiate a fire-break lockdown in an effort to slow the fourth wave.

The association says demand for intensive care nurses is so great, the number of patients assigned to each nurse has been increased, putting the level of care well below normal standards.

“Demand is driven by critically ill patients with COVID-19. We have responded aggressively by working with Alberta Health Services to increase our provincial ICU beds,” the letter issued on Monday stated. “To achieve this, AHS made the difficult decision to divert workers from other areas of our health-care system. This comes with major consequences, such as postponement of surgeries, important diagnostic tests and treatments. Given the magnitude of disruptions, this very well may have already impacted you or one of your loved ones.”

https://globalnews.ca/news/8224048/alberta-icu-doctors-covid-19-crisis-l...

Kenney continues to play fast and loose with the facts and stats on the Covid crisis in Alberta. 

Another major problem is how Kenney has been dealing with the crisis. 247 in ICU is good news? Time and again, he's had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to take action. And even then, as he did Thursday, he makes it sound like everything is under control.

"As of this morning, we had 247 COVID patients in intensive care, down from 257 the previous day, and roughly flat from where we were a week ago," Kenney said on Thursday, making it sound like having 247 people stricken with COVID-19 in intensive care was good news. And keep in mind that also on Thursday, Alberta Health Services reported another 20 people had died from COVID-19. One of them was a 24-year-old man from northern Alberta who had no known pre-existing conditions.

In an eye-opening comment last week, Dr. Verna Yiu, head of Alberta Health Services, said one of the reasons ICU wards have not faced even more pressure is because COVID-19 patients are dying and thus freeing up beds.

Even as Kenney talked on Thursday about the "severe" pressure on our hospitals, he continued to downplay the numbers. "It is important to note that we are not the only province to have gone through such a challenging period during COVID," said Kenney, making it sound like Alberta's "challenging period" was in the past. "Our per capita COVID ICU admissions are pretty much exactly where Ontario was during their spring wave and are well below where Manitoba was when they had to transfer ICU patients out of province."

But Kenney is comparing COVID apples and oranges. Ontario and Manitoba hit their "challenging times" back in the spring when vaccines were initially being rolled out. Alberta is experiencing its crisis at a time when vaccines have been widely available for months.

This irritating play with facts and figures might help explain why Kenney is the least popular premier in the country when it comes to dealing with the pandemic. Not only has he repeatedly tried to downplay the severity of COVID-19 by, among other things, likening it to the flu, he routinely toys with semantics to avoid taking responsibility for mistakes.

In July, for example, he dismissed the possibility of a fourth wave and rejected vaccine passports. We are now dealing with a catastrophic fourth wave and Kenney recently introduced a vaccine passport system but stubbornly refused to call it that, instead naming it a "restrictions exemption program."  And he refuses to heed the advice of both the Canadian Medical Association and the Alberta Medical Association for a "firebreak" or lockdown to help put a dent in COVID-19 numbers.

You have to wonder if that's because Kenney sincerely doesn't believe a firebreak will help or because he simply is a hostage to his own past anti-lockdown rhetoric. Reporters asked him Thursday if he would demand all his MLAs and their staff get vaccinated, to keep in step with the new rule for civil servants. According to Kenney, there are provisions in the Constitution to ensure elected officials aren't barred from entering the legislature.

He could, though, demand that any UCP MLA who isn't vaccinated be removed from the UCP caucus. (This is not an issue for the New Democrats who say all their MLAs and staff are fully vaccinated). If Kenney wants to show he's willing to get tough with the unvaccinated who are paid by the public and who should set an example during a devastating pandemic, he might want to start with the elected people who actually run the government.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-kenney-covid-19-mixed-me...

Here's an update on the Alberta Covid crisis:

• Alberta reported 4,037 new cases of COVID-19 over the weekend: 
  • 1,629 new cases out of 14,532 tests on Friday.
  • 1,282 new cases out of 14,316 tests on Saturday.
  • 1,126 new cases out of 10,417 tests on Sunday. 
• There are 20,674 active cases across Alberta.
• Alberta reported 21 more deaths from COVID on Monday. 
• A total of 2,752  Albertans have died of COVID. 
• The positivity rate was 10.74 per cent.
• The province continues to lead the country by a wide margin in daily new COVID cases and active cases. 
• There were 1,079 people being treated for COVID in hospital, 257 of whom were in intensive care beds. There was a total of 298 patients in ICU beds across the province. That's down three per cent from a week ago.
• There are currently 374 ICU beds open in Alberta, including 201 additional surge spaces (a 116 per cent increase over a baseline of 173).

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-covid-coronavirus-october...