Christine

It's along read...grab a coffee and if you agree, please retweet...your life depends on it. Alberta's ER Crisis Is Far From Over. Stop Celebrating Crisis Protocols as Success. Premier @ABDanielleSmith 's government is celebrating the return of Triage Liaison Physicians (TLPs) as progress in fixing Alberta's overcrowded emergency departments. Let's get something straight. TLPs are a CRISIS PROTOCOL, not healthcare reform. Their return is an acknowledgement that our healthcare system is still in crisis. I've practised emergency medicine in Alberta for 35 years. I've served as President of the AMA's Section of Emergency Medicine, an MLA, Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Health, and Chair of Health Quality Alberta (appointed by Premier Smith & I resigned). I've seen this crisis from the front lines to the front benches. And my colleagues and I helped implement many of these same emergency measures nearly 20 years ago: 1. Overcapacity protocols: Moving admitted ER patients into hospital hallways. 2. 11 a.m. discharges: Getting patients home earlier so hospital beds could turn over. 3. Mandatory EMS offloading: Getting paramedics back on the road instead of waiting for hours outside overcrowded ERs. University of Alberta emergency physicians (Drs. Rowe & Bullard/Holroyd) also developed and studied TLPs approximately 20 years ago to assess and treat patients stuck in waiting rooms. These were emergency measures to reduce harm when the system couldn't cope. They were never meant to be permanent solutions. And here we are again. I worked in an Edmonton ER this past weekend. Roughly 80% of our treatment spaces were occupied by sick patients already admitted to hospital but waiting for beds upstairs. Even our old minor-treatment areas were plugged with admitted patients. Our ER crisis isn't caused by people coming in with minor illnesses. It's caused by sick patients who can't get out of the ER and into hospital beds. Edmonton serves a growing, aging population and a massively underserved North. We simply don't have enough staffed hospital beds or the rehabilitation, subacute care, transitional care, supportive living and home-care, assisted living/long term care capacity to move patients through the system. Patients can't leave hospital. Admitted patients can't leave the ER. Ambulances can't offload. Waiting rooms fill up. Care gets delayed. People suffer & tragically some die :( And the government's answer is more episodic urgent care centres? How does that create a single hospital bed? Worse, where will the doctors and nurses come from when our hospitals are already short-staffed? Now we're asking exhausted ER physicians to volunteer for additional TLP shifts. A 2026 Canadian study found 10% of surveyed ER physicians had left emergency medicine over five years, while another 48% had cut back their clinical hours. We're asking fewer doctors to do more because we haven't fixed the system. We dealt with this under Premier @EdStelmachMLA . We understood that healthcare needed predictable, adequate, multi-year funding, workforce retention, team-based family medicine, and serious investment in home care, rehabilitation, subacute, transitional care and assisted living and long term & palliative/hospice care. The goal was to keep people healthy, keep seniors in their homes, and keep patients moving through hospitals. TLPs can save lives. I support them. But let's not confuse preventing harm with fixing the underlying problem. Success isn't how many doctors sign up for crisis shifts. Success is getting 90% of admitted ER patients into hospital beds within eight hours, getting ambulances back on the road, and providing Albertans safe, timely care. Premier Smith, stop celebrating Band-Aids as healthcare reform. You cannot triage your way out of a hospital bed shortage. After 35 years in emergency medicine, I find it astonishing that we're still relying on the same crisis measures we introduced nearly two decades ago. The return of crisis protocols isn't a victory. It's proof that the crisis is far from over. BTW, Danielle, @FreeAlbertaRob and the wildrose caucus supported my amendment in 2010 to legislate admissions to hospitals within 8 hours (90%of the time)...did you forget??? Dr. Raj Sherman Emergency & Trauma Physician Former MLA & Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Health Former Chair, Health Quality Alberta @UCPCaucus @Alberta_UCP @nenshi @PfParks @NightShiftMD @raghu_venugopal @TheSGEM @jkenney @RachelNotley @JMeddings @ryanjespersen @cspotweet @TheBreakdownAB @AdrianaLaGrange @AHS_media @Albertadoctors @UnitedNurses @david_parker @CAEP_Docs