The government of Alberta and Alberta Health Services are not being forthright with Albertans.
The current state of the health care system is very serious, verging on catastrophic.
This is a letter sent yesterday by the Edmonton Zone Medical Staff Association to the premier and company.
ICU is actually above levels of any previous point in the pandemic at this point.
Remember that anything we started doing now won’t be felt in the system for at least 3-4 weeks, since what is happening now will take time to work its way through the system.
What can you do?
- Vaccinate — Alberta has the lowest vaccine rate in Canada (neck and neck with Saskatchewan). Our local County of Warner has less than 50% of the population vaccinated. At present, all the COVID patients in the Lethbridge ICU are unvaccinated.
- Wear a mask.
- Urge school board to implement in-class masking in schools if not already in place. This is especially important for those under age 12 who can not yet be vaccinated.
- Contact your MLA and demand that they take action, and that they tell Albertans the truth.
This isn’t going to just affect people that aren’t vaccinated. “Elective” surgeries are cancelled. That doesn’t just mean “surgeries that would be nice to do.” It means “surgeries that if you don’t have right now, you’re not going to immediately die.”
This includes things like biopsies for cancer, cancer debulking surgeries, etc.
What does “failure” of the system mean? It means that at some point, people who need care to preserve life or limb won’t be able to get it at the level they should have it. We will have to start deciding who gets treated, and who doesn’t.
And if things get really desperate, you might have a family doctor running your intensive care . . . .
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