Alta. hospitals prepare triage protocols as ICUs nears brink

Dr. Deena Hinshaw says all new ICU admissions in Alberta on Thursday were among unvaccinated people. CTV's Bill Fortier on a critical situation.

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77 comments

    1. @Harry the third a strong statement, an opinion.. private, public, or a blend… Governments that prefer to privatize health care have no benefit from a well functioning public system. The current position Alberta is in is due to provincial government ineptitude, actions taken, with little regard for science or medicine. They also underestimated the ability of their citizens to be community minded. In this situation the pressure of the numbers of cases of a wave of an illness I personally don’t see it as a poorly functioning public health system, but a government failure at multiple critical stages.

    2. @Pam BP The entire system in Canada is a failure. You probably don’t even live in Canada or have never been to the hospitals.

  1. Massive cuts to Healthcare… A useless $600,000,000 election…
    And they say there is a bed shortage… Let’s be honest…
    This is a staffing shortage..!
    Why not bring back more Healthcare workers..? Pay hospital staff more..! Does it make sense to drive Healthcare workers away, when you need them most..???

    1. @Life with my service dog said _”I know that $600,000,000 could have gone to the healthcare”_

      You’re definitely right… it could have gone for Alberta Healthcare… but you can’t change that.

      Why not focus on why the money that was already given to the province, by the government, wasn’t put to proper use. It’s the provincial leaders responsibility to spend that money. Why hasn’t the conservative leadership in Alberta put more money in to the medical community of Alberta?

      *That is something you CAN fix*

    2. @Robert C. Christian what’s even more interesting is I bet you praise Trudeau in his covid response when his only real job is to make funds available for the provinces and to close the borders, neither of which he did

    1. @Robert C. Christian conservativism is truth, ICU’s are not overwhelmed anymore than they normally are. ICU’s run at over 90% all year every year. Liberalism is the reason Canada is falling apart. But I don’t expect you to understand facts.

    2. @ItAin’tHardToTell said _”There’s nothing liberal about violating human rights.”_

      Is it a violation of your human rights if you wear a seat belt? 🙂 If so, why do you do it?

    3. @North American Aboriginal Society of Canada any one of the provinces could have designed a hospital to deal with Covid patients.. BC did exactly that.. Kenny broke Alberta. Not the Fed’s

  2. 600 million dollars for a useless election plus a billion dollars to each province who is pro segregation, could have re-vamped our entire health care system.

    1. @Momma Bear So basically you’re angry at the government for the mismanagement of your own money and budget? And you want to blame them for it?

    2. @Momma Bear I understand your gripe… and you have a right to be ANGRY – but it has nothing to do with the government. It’s your own provincial leaders, the conservative ones, that have not spent their budget money during the pandemic or they have spent it in the wrong places. It’s up to them to take care of you, not the government. You should be angry at Kenny… and the conservative leadership.

      The reasons why there are ICU shortages is because of the pandemic, but the reason why there is only a certain amount of ICU beds is because of your own provincial leadership… They are the ones that set out the budget for your province and decide where the money is to go… Whether or not they go in to the medical community is up to Kenny and his leadership.

    3. @Alex R – If you’re a medical professional that doesn’t believe in medical science you SHOULD be fired. Next they’ll be trying to heal covid patients with magic crystals and horse radish….

    4. @Samuel Michaud I don’t disagree with you it should’ve been done a year ago but it’s certainly not Trudeau’s fault That Jason Kenney won’t allow it to get done anywhere true has been able to intervene the premieres have an always taken advantage of it

    1. They know that Alberta has a pretty healthy population when you subtract the illnesses the vaxxes are causing them.

  3. 2 years into this and our governments and medical still unprepared. ….maybe in year 9 they Wil be prepared. ??????????

    1. @0xsynergy when there are no more Nurses it means no reason for insurance companies to have Customers. It Always comes around to show n make evident where the power is in a capitalist system, the Consumer/Customer.

    1. No he means premier Kenny got his summer vacay right on cue. NOW WE ALL WAIT UNTIL NEXT SUMMER TO GO BACK TO NORMAL. The doctors cry about the government not acting How many of you just reelected him????

    2. There were like 70 cases during the stampede season, when an even smaller % of population was vaxed, and no mask mandates/passports were in place.

    1. Sad that Trudeau still has his Job, sad that Biden still has his Job…..

      According to your thought process Quebec should be nuked of the face of the planet as well, their death % per infection is insanely high compared to Alberta

    1. We’re not allowed to work in order to pay and no provincial tax. How do you expect to pay for them if they refuse to take a pay cuts? I’d be thankful to still have a job.

    2. @Tyler Oliver The short-staffed hospital my wife works at in BC would be happy to employ any nurses affected by pay cuts in Alberta

    3. @Tyler Oliver Has Alberta considered a 5% provincial sales tax? The largest counties in Texas have a 10% combined federal and state level sales tax, Alberta is being completely unreasonable trying to fund programs in their province without one.

    4. @Vern Dog yes that’s because bc has a provincial tax. Every province other than Alberta should be able to pay for that easily.

    5. @Tyler Oliver We could also just stop propping up Canada then, and keep more of our wealth to ourselves. You know, instead of shipping it out to the federal government so it can keep bailing out Eastern provinces.
      Although, on the subject of sales tax, I wouldn’t be entirely opposed to it as long as it came with a major overhaul of the taxation system. Basically, I’d accept a very, very high GST and PST – Like 30% combined – In exchange for the abolishment of property tax.

  4. If 230ish covid patients in ICU is enough to collapse a healthcare system serving nearly 4.5 MILLION residents, maybe the healthcare system is the bigger issue here.

    1. @mynameisradman Nope, why make it about actual care when it could be a great reason to sound off the me, me, me chant.

    2. Not to mention the AVERAGE ICU admittance rate in Alberta for most years before 2020 was 330 patients so what in the hell are they playing at? We have the lowest hospital admissions in history.

    3. Canadian healthcare has been running at the brink of collapse for as long as I can remember… and I am 44 years old. So 30 years probablu

    4. Almost like the funeral business has been incorporated alongside big pharma. Funeral Homes are guaranteed a certain amount of deaths per month.

    1. Not to mention 3500 healthcare professionals are about to be fired for not submitting to medical experimentation during this alleged deadly pandemic

    1. @Ken no. They are being suspended indefinitely with out pay. Being outright fired would be much better, as you actually get a course of action.

  5. Kenny: “PM pls, send the military in we need help!”
    PM: “just hire back all those nurses”.
    Kenny:”…. …”
    PM:”…. …”
    Kenny: XD
    PM: XD

    XD Looks like Kenny called in a favour. Hear he might be getting fired soon.

    1. Yeah, the er staff are much more efficient now. I end up in er a couple times a year for a lung disease and covid and this is the fastest it’s been. My doctors say it’s cuz they’ve cut out a bunch of beaurocratic bullcrap and streamline who gets wat patient (less chefs in the kitchen)

    2. If you are a patient you didn’t see the real emergy behind. Where for example they receive bone fracture case. You probably only see the part where they treat ‘small emergency’ like someone coming with the flu or everyother that can still walk.

  6. The federal contribution to healthcare was at 50% decades ago and has steadily declined to under 35%.
    No wonder resources are spread so thin. This is not a new phenomenon that will be fixed with an app.

  7. The most egregious of Dr. Yiu’s claim is that currently, 310 Albertans are in ICU and that Alberta has never had that many patients in ICU in its entire history, despite AHS’ own data showing that the province consistently has had more patients in ICU on average year-to-year even before COVID was a public health threat.

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