Jane Sustrik's speech at the rally
I am here today representing over 25,000 thousand Registered Nurses, Registered Psychiatric Nurses and other health workers across Alberta - healthcare workers who are concerned about what is happening with health care.
I want to start by thanking each of you for coming here today! By coming here and making your concerns known you are standing up and being counted. You are standing up against some very bad decisions.
We do not know for sure how much of Alberta Hospital Edmonton our government plans to shut down. As each day marches on, it sounds like they are going to close more and more of this facility. From day one, in their public memos, the only commitment made was the forensic units would remain.
The current rumours are that forensics too will be gone in one to three years, possibly to the new remand centre. Alberta Health Services and Mr Duckett have not been clear or honest from day one. Staff were initially told only those patients who did not need to be in hospital would be discharged to more appropriate community settings and only when available. They denied the closure of any acute care beds.
Over time, announced bed closures have come to include all four geriatric units and all the adult psychiatry beds. Only 50 beds are unaccounted for.
Just last week, a request to rezone this land was made to Edmonton City Council! Apparently the request was based on upgrading the food building… BUT the rezone was for 62 hectares! That's a pretty big food building. The rezone was also termed as “specialized zoning with multiple uses.” Hmmm - what could that mean??? Could it mean a private developer in the future? Is this land sitting on the proposed LRT line?
These directions and decisions are ill thought out, foolish, and you could even say they are wacky and irrational. There is something liberating about saying that here. Their plan is........ CRAZY! It's CUCKOO! Cuckoo!
When you think about it, in order to get admitted to Alberta Hospital Edmonton... and remember there are people desperately waiting to get in and get help... in order to get admitted, a patient has to be acutely ill - very, very sick.
And now we're going to lose many, if not all, of the beds where these people could have received first-class care.
This plan is INSANE!
What do you do with insane government? What do you do with a government that is AN IMMINENT DANGER to itself, and to OTHERS? A government that is menacing our society?
Clearly we don't have enough beds to hospitalize all 70 Conservative MLA's! Do we look for an alternate level of care, send them back to their community, find a home or street for them to go to, and make sure they can't return by closing down the legislature? Or do we make sure they go to a more appropriate setting, rebuild our democracy and keep the legislature open for those who need it to do some real good, to provide for all Albertans the services that are so important and needed?
We CANNOT sit back. I want to express my appreciation to all of you for standing up today. I know you are here because you care about the well-being of these patients and their families. You are standing up for some of the most vulnerable people in our society.
That's exactly what Dr. Patrick White said in the Edmonton Journal last week. Thank you to Dr. White for speaking out and saying publicly what so many of the staff here at AHE have been saying.
"This is just not fair and it smacks of striking at a vulnerable group,” he said.
The other good quote from Dr. White is one we are exemplifying here today. He said: "I am not going to sit back and watch them save money on the mentally ill."
We cannot sit back. We MUST not sit back. We WILL NOT sit back. We will fight for the proper treatment and care for Albertans!
Thank you ALL - EVERY ONE OF YOU!
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