Lethbridge-East candidates address concerns over healthcare, SCS during library forum
By Justin Sibbet - Lethbridge Herald Local Journalism Initiative Reporter on May 9, 2023.
Lethbridge-East UCP candidate Nathan Neudorf, foreground, along with NDP candidate Rob Miyashiro, take part in a forum Monday evening hosted by the library.
Herald photo by Ian MartensHealthcare continues to be a major point of concern for the citizens of Lethbridge as they directly question the Lethbridge-East candidates.
The Lethbridge Public Library hosted an open forum yesterday, with both Rob Miyashiro of the NDP and Nathan Neudorf of the UCP in attendance.
The candidates took questions from both a panel of local media representatives and those sitting in the audience.
The candidates were asked if they would bring back another permanent supervised consumption site to the city.
Neudorf says he does not support a return to the site, saying the UCP sought to immediately remove the site when his party took office in 2019.
“One of the first things our government did when we took power was to remove that because we saw so much social disorder, petty crime, vandalism, littering downtown, it created a lot of problems for our small businesses,” said Neudorf.
The incumbent MLA says there is still a need to provide support for those facing addictions, but other methods are required.
“Our focus has always been about treatment and recovery so [drug users] get off that hamster wheel of addiction. Most of the people that need that service, need it for long term care,” said Neudorf.
Furthermore, he says the new treatment centre located outside the city will provide superior care and support over a longer period.
“We’re talking one year, 18 months, up to two years to help them recover,” said Neudorf.
However, Miyashiro says the UCP plan is not working, with more fatalities seen in recent years than ever before.
“The past few years have been the deadliest on record. Far too many Albertans are dying from preventable drug poisoning deaths,” said Miyashiro.
The former city councillor says action must be taken beyond a drug treatment centre if the government is going to stop the drug problem.
“We can, and we have to, take better steps to prevent further deaths and we need to build a safe and healthy community for everyone while we’re doing it,” said Miyashiro.
Although, he admits there is no easy solution when dealing with addiction.
“This is a really complex issue, there’s no simple solution to that. The Alberta NDP is taking an all-hands-on-deck approach to this issue,” said Miyashiro.
He says there needs to be a full system in place to support those facing addiction, adding that mental health is the key to winning this battle.
“We need a whole system to support people … We need to have the healthcare system involved, we need housing, we need to have treatment,” said Miyashiro.
Both candidates expressed their concerns with the drug problem facing the city, saying their party will fight for Albertans and bring forward a solution to this crisis.
Another question focused on the attraction and retention of doctors to the city.
Miyashiro says, under an NDP government, a million more Albertans will have access to a family physician if his party is elected.
“One of the ways we’re going to do this is develop family health clinics centred around family health teams,” said Miyashiro.
He says this will alleviate the demand for physicians by enabling other experts to deal directly with patients.
“Obviously we’re going to have to train more people,” said Miyashiro.
He says the party will work more closely with post-secondary institutions to enable the additional training.
Neudorf says the UCP will bring a similar approach to tackle this issue, also saying the family health team concept is nothing new.
However, he says the current program needs to change before it can become effective on a larger scale because it has failed to offer direct billing to the government.
“We need to negotiate a new contract so that we can continue to find new ways for them to bill the government,” said Neudorf.
Furthermore, he says the UCP will look for bigger solutions to bring forward an appropriate plan in Lethbridge.
Neudorf says the Chinook Regional Hospital needs to be taken from a Tier 3 service to a Tier 2 service.
This would allow for a greater cardiac and neurological services, among other things.
“Until we have that service, we will continue to have to take patients to Calgary or other centres,” said Neudorf.
Other questions from the media panel focused on different areas in the healthcare system, affordability for small businesses, housing programs and rent prices.
The library will be hosting Lethbridge-West candidates this evening at the downtown branch starting at 6 p.m. in the Theatre Gallery.
The provincial election will be held on May 29, with early voting taking place from the 23-27 at various polling stations around the city.
36-35
NDP, all sounds so wonderful, create a mess, then brag about how much money they are going to spend to fix it. Here is a stat for you Robbie.
by Beige Luciano-Adams from Public News.
But British Columbia has 38 supervised drug consumption sites and a “safe supply” policy, which makes a “range of opioids and stimulants” available by prescription, and saw drug deaths rise from 994 in 2016 when it announced supervised drug sites to 2,272 in 2022.
Why is that? If homeless encampments have been flooded with Narcan and other harm reduction measures, why do drug deaths continue to skyrocket?
BC will see a dramatic increase in fatal overdoses since it decriminalized small amounts of drugs, possibly as high as 60% increase. Portland saw an increase in the first year of 56% when it did the same and Washington state also saw large increase, especially in Seattle after implementiing it.
BC is drained by all the non-profits who do not have treatment or counselling services, but supply all of the paraphernalia, Narcan, for the addicts to slowly kill themselves, while others deliver food, water and clothes right to them on the streets, so they don’t have to go to a supports area where they can get help.
Non-profits are a billion dollar industry in BC and just imagine if all that money went into treatment programs for mental health and addictions.
Alberta is on the right track, but that will be derailed if the NDP gets back in bringing more of their non-profit buddies under the government funding umbrella. Our tax dollars which enable addicts to continue in their addictions, instead of treating them.
Again, what renders any representative of the UCP not credible is this:
“Unhinged: Danielle Smith says vaccinated Albertans are just like the German voters who elected Hitler.”
http://www.albertapolitics.ca
Would UCP voters recognize this ‘unhingement’ and still vote for it? Would they agree with it? Question is: What ‘unhinged’ thing is next with Danielle Smith? This stuff just cannot be made up.
The NDP destroyed this city, the downtown business core, and countless lives by opening the SCS and Miyashiro was pro-SCS as he sat on council and got into dogfights with other councillors in meetings when those councillors were expressing the concerns of the people impacted.
Fatal overdoses rose across North America because of COVID and the restrictions that were employed and any person who has paid attention to those stats knows it. We are not that stupid to believe it is because there was no SCS.
In fact, after the SCS opening the fatal overdoses increase here, the numbers of addicts and the numbers of people openly using drugs on our streets, everywhere and when we walked by as they sat right beside the sidewalk, shooting up, they looked at us as if to say, what are you looking at, we aren’t doing anything wrong.
Also, Miyashiro you seem to forget there is the mobile Overdose Prevention Site trailer still operating at the shelter, so your statements hold zero fact!
The NDP destroyed families by opening the SCS and refused to listen to the business community impacted, the citizens and those who lost loved ones, some of whom are friends.
To add another kick while we are down and paying over $14 million from our local property taxes/city revenues annually because the issues on our streets have created increase policing, fire/EMS costs as well as increases in security patrols, using Clean Sweep, Puro-Clean, etc., to clean up the mess made, as well as increased city workers, and the list goes on and on, the Lethbridge West NDP MLA desides she is going to sue the LPS, which in the end will be the city taxpayer, because she was not happy with the LPS punishments and job losses to those officers who illegally surveilled her.
The MLA decided to sue LPS, after a more than reasonable action was taken! More abuse by this MLA who like the NDP candidate running for Lethbridge East, has done nothing in the past 4 years to help end the carnage on our streets, but attack anyone or everyone that has solutions.
The more SCS’s and OPS’s a province has, the more fatal overdoses and the more money blown on non-profits who are there to enable and encourage addicts to continue in their addictions, with little to no help for treatment, while draining all those tax dollars that are better spent in treatment, which will save lives, instead of supply everything they need to slowly kill themselves.
SK and MB only had about 400-450 fatal overdoses last year and MB has no SCS and SK has one but not government funded.
Alberta has 7 SCS and OPS sites with about 1630 fatal overdoses in 2022.
BC has over 27 SCS and OPS sites and had over 2272 fatal overdoses in 2022.
The more SCS sites/non-profits, the more fatal overdoses!
And Miyashiro, last year Alberta had a 12% DECREASE in fatal overdoses! Read article from Globe and Mail link below.
Alberta is on the right track and the UCP is behind that right track!
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-the-tide-is-turning-but-the-war-on-drug-overdoses-is-far-from-over/
Thank you for sharing all your knowledge. Wish city council would listen,instead of passing the buck.