Time of the essence to help person with pancreatic cancer
By Lethbridge Herald on June 19, 2024.
Editor:
Dear Honourable Neudorf, Smith and LaGrange, I am writing to you about a very critical situation regarding a Lethbridge East constituent.
Our friend has pancreatic cancer. Our friend was diagnosed almost eight weeks ago. Our friend has still not received any treatment.
Time is of the essence! We repeat time is of the essence!
Apparently, his lifesaving treatment delay is a result of physician, nursing and physical resource shortages.
Shortages that can be directly correlated to the UCP’s total mismanagement of the health care system in Alberta.
We want to refresh your memory.
Do you remember picking a fight with the doctors in Alberta during a worldwide pandemic? Do you remember capping the number of visits/day a physician was allowed?
Do you remember that thousands of Albertans cannot find a physician, still? Do you remember the mass exodus of physicians leaving the province?
Do you remember burning out the nurses during COVID and as a result, many have either left the profession or relocated to a different province, where they are now being treated more respectfully?
Do you remember having to buy back laboratory equipment and services in the south region, due to incompetence and long wait times for services?
Do your remember rural emergency departments being closed due to shortages? While our friend is suffering, both physically and mentally, you are busy spending $85 million dollars on developing and restructuring health care into four pillars, which you promise will deliver sustainable and state of the art health care.
While you are gleefully restructuring again and misleading Albertans with delayed and false promises, are you prepared to send our friend to a health care facility and fund the treatment that he requires? It is the least that you can do for a man who is fighting for his life; to have his pain heard by those that have the power to do something about it.
Please do not respond with a form letter. We expect a response to our question and want to remind you time is of the essence.
Dwight and Lorna Jones
Lethbidge
17-16
Well said.My mother died of Pancreatic Cancer in the 90s when Smith’s hero Ralph Klein did the same thing. She never got her surgery.
People wonder why I am so Fed Up with these fake Conservatives and the idiots who support them. You can bet Poilievre will get elected and like Harper will try to destroy our Public Healthcare System as he spreads his lies about the Carbon Tax and destroys it also even though my relatives in B. C.know it works.
His pal Danielle Smith has opened an office in Ottawa so she will be ready to help him steal our Canada Pension Plan , kick out the RCMP and force Canadians to give us Equalization Payments to replace the billions of dollars in Royalties they are helping the rich steal from us. Lawyers warn if Smith gets a hold of your pension plan there is nothing stopping her from saying “ you have gotten more than you put into it, you don’t deserve anymore”. We have all gotten a lot more thanks to Ottawa, haven’t we? Yet she claims Ottawa is stealing all our money?
The facts prove her dead wrong and show Trudeau has given us billions more as these articles prove “ Albertans have received more funds from the feds than from revenue in decades, Albertans have received more COVID funding per capita than any other province”. It makes her look like a damn fool and now she wants to stop him from helping our municipalities survive by funding them while she cheats them out of Oil Royalties that they rightfully own. Where is the intelligence in that?
Excellent letter! It is an indication of what a dumpster fire the Smith/Parker UCP/TBA government has perpetuated with health care. We, still, have not recovered from the Klein era cutbacks. Then, as well, spaces to the med schools were cut at the U of C and U of A, another indication of cuts to postsecondary education, and the number of doctors being trained. It still, resonates to this day.
This brings back memories of when Lethbridge had 400 acute care beds between two hospitals before the drastic Klein health care cutbacks. Then, folks did not wait long for a doctor’s appointment, a referral to a specialist, or getting needed surgery. It was worthwhile that with this number of beds that doctors were here, and stayed. Then, a referral for this type of cancer would have been made immediately to Calgary and surgery there, if needed. What would it tell anyone about having 400 acute care beds instead of 200 with an ever increasing population. The economics of it are glaring.
What is mind boggling is that any Albertan who pays attention to these things would vote for the UCP. Is it a case of, if it isn’t happening to me, oh well? Until the day that one, or loved ones, enter the system and expectations are not met? Unreal…..this is all unconscionable and inhumane.
Wait Times for Cancer Treatment in Canada
Long wait times are part of the problem, with Canada having the “the highest proportion of patients with long delays to see specialists.” (56% of patients wait more than four weeks; the international average is 36%.)
I certainly have sympathy for your friend in this situation but it appears that it is a Canada wide issue.
But this is Alberta and don’t we know better than all other Canadians on every issue? So, why can’t we solve this problem?
Isn’t health care under provincial jurisdiction – particularly in our firewall-loving-wanna-be-sovereign province?
Yet you don’t see anything wrong with how badly your Reform Party Pals in this UCP government have treated them while you kiss their ass and hurl sarcastic comments at anyone not as stupid as you, why?