Edmonton – Nurses and Albertans should be outraged that Alberta Health Services is saying it will improve services while it is actually making more drastic cuts to staffing.
"They have announced less money will provide more and better services. Less people and they're going to provide more and better services. I don't think so," says UNA President Heather Smith. "It's going to make access and quality of services less."
Today AHS CEO Stephen Duckett announced a 3% across the board budget cut, which includes AHS partners and voluntaries like Covenant Health. Part of the announcement was negotiating voluntary severance for early retirements.
"It looks like phase one of Duckett's cuts was the NON hiring freeze, which we notice AHS now calls "not filling vacant positions". That aggravated the shortage situation in many areas. It was a severe staffing cut. Now, phase two looks like 3% more staffing cuts," Heather Smith said.
AHS Financial statements for 2008-2009 showed total spending of $9.9 billion (not including ambulance services). Now, if Duckett cuts the complete deficit, the $10.9 billion budget for this year would be reduced by $1.3 billion to about $9.6 billion, presumably including ambulance services.
"That's a significant cut in our health services," says Heather Smith. "How that's going to make things better is a calculation I don't understand."
Duckett mentioned the closures at Alberta Hospital Edmonton as a new example of their transparency with Albertans. But he did not clarify how more cuts would be made. Are they going to close further facilities? Or are they going to spread the pain and make short staffing worse everywhere?
"We will enter discussions with the Employers about severance, but it seems almost absurd," Heather Smith said. "During all the recent years of negotiations, the top priority has been retention of senior nurses. This severance is an attempt to cover up the elimination of positions, reducing services. This can't be good management."
August 26, 2009. |
