NDP Rx for fractured healthcare: One health ministry to end the mayhem

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Alberta’s fractured health care needs to be put back together, the NDP said Thursday.

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At the Calgary announcement of the party’s Future of Health Care plan, a doctor and a one-time patient took the podium to deliver the diagnosis.

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Dr. Luanne Metz, NDP MLA for Calgary-Varsity and the party’s chair of the future of health care, said Danielle Smith’s UCP government broke health care into multiple ministries, agencies, and bureaucracies that don’t work together. The move to dismantle Alberta Health Services was completed in 2025, with the various health-care entities coming under four health ministries, described as pillars.

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An NDP government will bring those pillars back to one integrated Ministry of Health, Matz said.

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“Years of UCP turmoil, mismanagement, and privatization have actually left Alberta health-care systems more fragmented, less liable, and more difficult to gain access to,” she stated.”Albertans do not experience healthcare in pieces. They require one linked system. “

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The NDP’s strategy will co-ordinate labor force, facilities, and service preparation, linking health details systems so service providers can interact better, she stated.

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“We’ll much better incorporate healthcare and social services, and we’ll work straight with neighborhoods to create services that show regional requirements, consisting of Indigenous-led and rural-led techniques to care,” Metz stated, including a chord to resound with the celebration’s labour strengths: the NDP will enhance the overloaded health-care labor force.

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“After years of UCP mayhem and confusion, health employees are being asked to do more with less, and it’s time to alter that,” she stated.

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Metz stated the NDP will bring back the province’s rely on its health-care system.

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“Albertans should have self-confidence that health-care choices are being made in their benefit, not for political experts or personal interests. That’s why we will safeguard and support the Canada Health Act. We will introduce a public query into corrupt care. We will present whistleblower defenses for health-care employees. We will openly report on wait times and health system efficiency.”

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A byelection for the Calgary-Shaw constituency is set for Sept. 14, and NDP prospect Kyle Campbell explained his own medical quagmire after a 2023 cancer medical diagnosis as a young dad.

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“I rapidly discovered what a lot of Albertans currently understand: our health-care system is broken. I got captured up in the UCP’s DynaLIFE privatization plan. Rather of getting blood work done within days, I waited 6 weeks for a 10-minute consultation. Throughout my chemotherapy treatment, my medical professional needed to call me from her individual time off due to the fact that nobody was offered to cover her, and I had immediate test outcomes,” Campbell remembered.

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Later on, he invested hours in waiting spaces awaiting care with a major infection.