Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[Fuzz]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...638402?cmp=rss

New polling. Looking pretty rough for the UCP. The Report Card graph is pretty telling. Not one issue where 50% of people think they are on the right track. Only 23% of people think they are an honest government.

[RedHot25]

https://calgarysun.com/opinion/colum...e-of-the-beans

Before going on, some souls are curious about whether Premier Danielle Smith is somehow caught in the web of this story.

Smith’s people say she knew nothing.

She wasn’t aware of the plot to run Nenshi out of office. She didn’t know Wallace.

She didn’t know anything about an Operation Peacock.

She had no idea anybody wanted her to be the so-called “friendly media,” who would break the story of the Nenshi entrapment.

Smith’s people say the premier is learning the ins and outs of this tale along with the rest of us.

Wallace says the only time he met Smith was the first day he was in Calgary and he met up with Joe Magliocca, then a Calgary city councillor.

It was in front of Cowboys.

Smith was there and Magliocca briefly said: “Hi, Danielle. This is the guy we’re bringing in for Peacock.”

It was a 10-second encounter.

Question. Did Smith have any connection to the scheme?

“No,” says Wallace. But …

“She was going to be the friendly media that broke whatever entrapment I could get on Nenshi and leak it on the radio.”

At the time, Smith was a radio talk-show host

[The Fisher Account]

Good grief.. this province

[Inglewood Jack]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...638402?cmp=rss

New polling. Looking pretty rough for the UCP. The Report Card graph is pretty telling. Not one issue where 50% of people think they are on the right track. Only 23% of people think they are an honest government.

the one and only time Edmonton Is Not No Good

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Inglewood Jack

the one and only time Edmonton Is Not No Good

ummm I'll cheer of the Oilerz if it guarantees a NDP win...

[AFireInside]

Originally Posted by GGG

The appointment thing is a side affect of fee for service billing. If you note BC appears to be getting rid of it. But there are pros and cons to it.

No it isn't. There are pros and cons to that set up though from what I'm told. I think depending on the type of patients or case load you have really make that system good or bad, but that applies to our billing as well.

Anecdotes are always difficult to use as examples. Even my job has things from that seem like a waste of time to people on the outside or to me. A couple of the anecdotes posted here don't even add up, unless there's more to the story, which there likely is, and that doesn't mean their complaints aren't valid either.

The story of going to the GP every other week, only to be sent to a specialist who says take it easy and it's better in a week. If a GP has 30 cases like this year and the first thing they do is send to a specialist, good luck getting to a specialist, especially when it resolves with rest. Did the GP suspect it was something else, do they see things like this every week that usually resolve by taking it easy, and this one just took longer, so a specialist was eventually called, etc.

Claims of "it's because money" or "it's because they are dumb" are meaningless, & just serve to get people riled up. I'm sure HCW's have lots of solutions to many of our issues, but the government needs to listen.

For the record I'm no better, I get just as annoyed at many of these situations, like going to a dentist because I have a cavity, getting there and they tell me I have a cavity and schedule me for a week later. It drives me crazy and I just assume it's because of money, but it's more likely done that way for reasons I'm not thinking of.

[GordonBlue]

Originally Posted by Inglewood Jack

the one and only time Edmonton Is Not No Good

Get it together Calgary. what's your problem? I knew you guys were no good on the UCP front.

[jayswin]

nm

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Inglewood Jack

the one and only time Edmonton Is Not No Good

God our city is embarrassing.

[Sr. Mints]

Another example of a bottleneck in the health system. When patients go to the ER, and from there they need to go somewhere else such as the ICU, the trauma ward, and from there somewhere more long-term, oftentimes, there are simply no beds.

You can throw all the money at "more beds" and have as many ribbon-cutting ceremonies in front of cameras as you want, but the bottleneck transitioning from acute care to long-term care is massive and more beds doesnt address this.

I was one of those people in 2018. From Ambulance->ER->Trauma Ward in like 12 hours, but from there I had to wait something like *three weeks* to get into the tertiary neuro rehabilitation ward (unit 58?). Then Humbolt bus crash happened, and cause I was one of the more stable patients they had no choice but to send me home for the home care version of the treatment I was to receive at Unit 58 - and I was only at 58 for like three weeks. There simply weren't enough beds.

I still see many of the same brain and spine doctors and the odd rehab therapist four years later - and seemingly new different docs all the time, and I've been able to glean a lot of info that as patients we don't really have access to from our side. One of my questions is always "how does it get fixed?" The amount of genuine (i.e. not blowing me off) "I really don't knows" I've gotten is frustrating - and increasingly disheartening.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Sr. Mints

Another example of a bottleneck in the health system. When patients go to the ER, and from there they need to go somewhere else such as the ICU, the trauma ward, and from there somewhere more long-term, oftentimes, there are simply no beds.

You can throw all the money at "more beds" and have as many ribbon-cutting ceremonies in front of cameras as you want, but the bottleneck transitioning from acute care to long-term care is massive and more beds doesnt address this.

I was one of those people in 2018. From Ambulance->ER->Trauma Ward in like 12 hours, but from there I had to wait something like *three weeks* to get into the tertiary neuro rehabilitation ward (unit 58?). Then Humbolt bus crash happened, and cause I was one of the more stable patients they had no choice but to send me home for the home care version of the treatment I was to receive at Unit 58 - and I was only at 58 for like three weeks. There simply weren't enough beds.

I still see many of the same brain and spine doctors and the odd rehab therapist four years later - and seemingly new different docs all the time, and I've been able to glean a lot of info that as patients we don't really have access to from our side. One of my questions is always "how does it get fixed?" The amount of genuine (i.e. not blowing me off) "I really don't knows" I've gotten is frustrating - and increasingly disheartening.

Reminds me of the time my wife was in a unit and needed to get to another tower to see a heart specialist about 11 years ago. Time is getting closer(like 10 min to appointment time), and nurse comes in and says "sorry, we have no porters to take her, so we will have to re-book." This is obviously ridiculous, not having a $15/h porter(guessing!) means an expensive specialist is sitting around without a patient he expected. So I think "#### this" and say "I know where it is, can I take her?" The nurse understanding the urgency says "go ahead, I'll tell him you are on your way".

I got some stern and odd looks from other porters as I traversed the typically "staff only" corridors pushing a patient. The doctor was super appreciative that I brought her. But it's just things like that that you experience constantly when in the hospital for a long time that makes you realize there are so many critical failure points that increase costs and it is baffling that it just goes on and on.

[chedder]

Originally Posted by GordonBlue

Get it together Calgary. what's your problem? I knew you guys were no good on the UCP front.

Too much of this. I had a business acquaintance tell me Notley scares him more than Smith and therefore would still vote ucp. When pressed to elaborate, all the standard socialist/taxes nonsense.

[Ozy_Flame]

This is another problem with Calgarians when I've chatted about it in the last few visits there:

Calgary boomers before UCP election: We're not voting for Danielle Smith, she's to extreme for us. Toews, Schulz or Aheer is fine. They aren't the Wildrose.

Calgary boomers after UCP election: We need to give Danielle a chance, she has great ideas and brings up good points - what's in it for us? Ottawa isn't giving us a fair shake. Do you want a communist government?

My head literally exploded.

[Amethyst]

I have SO sick of Alberta politicians who seem to want to do nothing except fight the feds. It's not only a waste of time, it's stupid. The Liberals would love to be able to say they made inroads in Alberta. Why not take advantage of that opportunity to work with them and achieve some good for the province? You can always say that it was your influence that improved what the feds were offering when the next federal election comes along. Right now, your combative stance does nothing to benefit the citizens of this province.

[Rhettzky]

Originally Posted by jayswin

God our city is embarrassing.

Well 40% are anyway. But isn't that also just 40% of people who answer unsolicited phone calls and take the time to answer poll questions? Or people who still have landlines? Cause that would explain some things.

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by chedder

Too much of this. I had a business acquaintance tell me Notley scares him more than Smith and therefore would still vote ucp. When pressed to elaborate, all the standard socialist/taxes nonsense.

I have found that the more money people make, the more they believe that their taxes should go down as they should decide what to do with their money (ie, spend on private healthcare, not needing CPP/OAS, etc). Some even say, and I quote "Why should they take my money, there's nothing in it for me". Being able to afford options seems to make a person want to restrict them for others.

With the salaries being so "high" in Calgary, and with the crap the UCP promises these people, I wonder if that's why Calgary is heavily skewed that direction.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Reminds me of the time my wife was in a unit and needed to get to another tower to see a heart specialist about 11 years ago. Time is getting closer(like 10 min to appointment time), and nurse comes in and says "sorry, we have no porters to take her, so we will have to re-book." This is obviously ridiculous, not having a $15/h porter(guessing!) means an expensive specialist is sitting around without a patient he expected. So I think "#### this" and say "I know where it is, can I take her?" The nurse understanding the urgency says "go ahead, I'll tell him you are on your way".

I got some stern and odd looks from other porters as I traversed the typically "staff only" corridors pushing a patient. The doctor was super appreciative that I brought her. But it's just things like that that you experience constantly when in the hospital for a long time that makes you realize there are so many critical failure points that increase costs and it is baffling that it just goes on and on.

And this sort of goes back to something that Slava touched upon previously and that I've sort of been on about as well.

These issues are not solved with dollars.

These types of systems and processes are endemic in AHS. Believe it or not, AHS is not an underfunded entity, they are given lots and lots of budget, but they dont use it very effectively and to cure most of AHS' ills, just more money isnt going to do it, not on its own. AHS needs serious budgetary and operational reform.

I do however think an element that some people may miss or gloss over is that we do need to pile in a ton of money up-front to keep the thing running while we perform those reforms.

If someone told me that the will and the structure were in place to turn AHS into something better...read: NOT necessarily CHEAPER but BETTER

I would be more than okay with a huge infusion of Tax Dollars for that.

Those are Tax Dollars that are actually benefitting people as long as they're not being swallowed up by AHS middle-management bloat.

[redforever]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

This is another problem with Calgarians when I've chatted about it in the last few visits there:

Calgary boomers before UCP election: We're not voting for Danielle Smith, she's to extreme for us. Toews, Schulz or Aheer is fine. They aren't the Wildrose.

Calgary boomers after UCP election: We need to give Danielle a chance, she has great ideas and brings up good points - what's in it for us? Ottawa isn't giving us a fair shake. Do you want a communist government?

My head literally exploded.

Exactly what all the comments in the Herald are like...mind boggling that they behave like lemmings.

[Roughneck]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1588172727286104064

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Locke

And this sort of goes back to something that Slava touched upon previously and that I've sort of been on about as well.

These issues are not solved with dollars.

These types of systems and processes are endemic in AHS. Believe it or not, AHS is not an underfunded entity, they are given lots and lots of budget, but they dont use it very effectively and to cure most of AHS' ills, just more money isnt going to do it, not on its own. AHS needs serious budgetary and operational reform.

I do however think an element that some people may miss or gloss over is that we do need to pile in a ton of money up-front to keep the thing running while we perform those reforms.

If someone told me that the will and the structure were in place to turn AHS into something better...read: NOT necessarily CHEAPER but BETTER

I would be more than okay with a huge infusion of Tax Dollars for that.

Those are Tax Dollars that are actually benefitting people as long as they're not being swallowed up by AHS middle-management bloat.

Some are. Like seniors stuck in hospital care because we don't have enough community care spaces. It's expensive and pointless, but there is no choice. So yes, we need to spend money on care homes to spend less in hospitals. But it starts with spending moeny in the right spots, and will take years to see the financial benefits.