CALGARY – The shivers felt with the announced cuts to health budgets last year are turning into shock waves as Alberta towns lose hospital beds or see them converted to nursing homes.
The government plan calls for a reduction in health spending from $4 billion a year to $3.7 billion by 1997.
Every Albertan will also pay more for services through increased health care premiums. Individual coverage went up July 1 from $32 a month to $34. Family rates are $68 a month.
A recent Angus Reid poll reported public support of almost 70 percent for premier Ralph Klein’s government but noted his Achilles heel could be continued cuts and changes to health care.
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Rural people say they aren’t sure what the system will look like or how they will get medical help.
Bow Island farmer Elizabeth Olson is concerned about elderly people in the far southeastern corner of the province who live long distances from amenities.
“With the likes of Foremost and Manyberries, they’re far away from anything,” she said. “I consider myself lucky because we’re close to the highway. But we’re an exception to the rule.
“There’s a lot of changes and we’re not sure what the whole impact will be.”
One region undergoing change is the Chinook Regional Health Authority based in Lethbridge. It is responsible for the health needs of everyone from Waterton Park on the western border to Aden, two-thirds of the way east across the province, and has a northern boundary about 40 kilometres north of the city.
Each regional authority receives a budget from Alberta Health and is responsible for how the money is spent. Chinook made its largest cuts this year. Its total budget this year was $140 million and by the 1996-1997 fiscal year the annual budget will drop to $115 million, said Vern Jubber, medical director for the regional authority.
“We’ve done a lot of major changes and now we’re waiting to see how it shakes down,” said Jubber.
Beds have been closed in all the major hospitals to fall in line with the provincial recommendation of 2.1 beds per 1,000 people. Staff was laid off and more money is earmarked for long-term and home care. Administration is consolidated in Lethbridge, the regional centre.
Hospitals in Picture Butte, Coaldale, Magrath and Raymond are being converted to long-term care, mostly for the elderly. Coaldale has gone from 25 to 45 long-term care beds and Picture Butte went from six to 20 long-term beds. Fort Macleod and Taber also lost beds.
In Coaldale, Magrath and Picture Butte, three observation beds have been set up at each facility for emergencies to stabilize patients before sending them to Lethbridge Regional Hospital.
Denise Templeton, a nurse at the five-year-old Coaldale hospital, worries about patient care and nurse burn-out.
Her concern is that the cuts came too fast without enough planning.
The community wants to keep its acute care beds even though regional plans are to convert it to a long-term care facility, she said.
The conversion there is also being handled with fewer nurses. On the long-term care side, a single shift includes a registered nurse, licensed practical nurse and a patient care assistant – someone without medical training who can help feed and lift patients. One nurse handles the remaining acute care beds, emergency and obstetrics cases.
“It’s a little ridiculous what they’re expecting the nurses to do,” she said.
Another controversy is the practice of moving patients out of a community if a bed is available elsewhere in the region.
Patients, especially the elderly, are reluctant to be transferred to hospitals outside their communities and frequently their spouses, who are also elderly, can’t visit. Now, anybody who goes on a long-term list could end up outside their town until a bed is available in the area they want, said Templeton.
