opinion: accepting covid help hard for alta.
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by: licia corbella
it really is easier to give than to receive.
when it comes to accepting help to deal with covid-19, the alberta government has proven to be loath to do so as, in many respects, it indicates a failure to get ahead of a covid spike.
premier jason kenney, however, is finally accepting help from the province of newfoundland and labrador, the canadian armed forces and the canadian red cross, who together will provide as many as 36 intensive-care medical staff to bolster alberta’s health-care system that is on the verge of reaching its capacity of surge icu beds.
before he got to what help alberta would receive, kenney pointed out just how much alberta helped other provinces in the past during this pandemic.
“alberta has always been there to support our fellow canadians when they needed help,” said kenney.
he recalled how alberta sent cargo planes full of personal protective equipment and more than 100 ventilators to ontario, quebec and nova scotia during the first wave — made possible mostly because deputy health minister paul wynnyk, a retired lieutenant-general, started buying up supplies of masks and ventilators in anticipation of the need during the early days of the pandemic before other jurisdictions.
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“it’s why we accepted overflow icu patients from manitoba in the spring and offered the same assistance to ontario at that time. in fact, we currently have nine icu patients from other provinces, including b.c., in our intensive-care units now,” said kenney, who added that alberta continues to provide medical aid to the residents of the northwest territories, who are experiencing a fourth wave similar to our own.
anywhere from eight to 10 icu-trained staff from the canadian armed forces will help the province staff up to two more icu beds. it’s expected that they’ll be located at canadian forces base edmonton, supporting edmonton-area hospitals.
the red cross will provide up to 20 trained staff, some of whom have general training and others with icu training. they’re expected to be deployed at the red deer regional hospital, “which is under severe stress given low vaccination rates in rural central alberta,” said kenney.
newfoundland and labrador is expected to send five or six icu experienced staff to be deployed to the northern lights regional health centre in fort mcmurray — a reverse order come from away.
“i really want to thank premier andrew furey for reaching out to us early in september to offer the same kind of assistance that newfoundland and labrador provided to ontario in the spring.
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“as he joked with me, fort mcmurray is newfoundland’s second largest city, so this is a wonderful gesture from a province whose people have done so much to build alberta’s prosperity.”
it appears the government has been holding off on accepting this help as its modelling seems to indicate the worst is yet to come, with peak covid infections hitting toward the end of october.
already, despite more than doubling the number of surge icu beds in the province and cancelling all so-called elective surgeries, which include surgeries for cancer and heart operations, alberta is operating at 83 per cent of capacity of the 372 icu beds, with 307 patients in icu.
kenney also asked prime minister justin trudeau on wednesday to procure some johnson & johnson one-dose, protein-based vaccines in an effort to have more albertans who are hesitant — because of misinformation about the safety of mrna vaccines — to get vaccinated and stop clogging up our hospitals and causing the cancellation of life-saving surgeries for those who are.
a minimum order is 24,000 doses, so alberta is teaming up with b.c. and saskatchewan to order 50,000 j&j vaccines in the hopes of upping the vaccination rate of albertans, which has risen from just 78 per cent of first-dose coverage on sept. 3 to nearly 84 per cent today — 200,000 more people vaccinated since the government announced its unpopular and controversial $100 vaccine incentive for laggards and the restriction exemption program — better known as a vaccine passport — which must be shown to get into restaurants, hockey games and other areas where people congregate.
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now, perhaps the biggest backtrack made by kenney so far regarding covid is the requirement for all 25,000 members of the alberta public service to show proof of vaccination by nov. 30, or regular negative test results that the employee will have to pay for themselves.
public service commissioner tim grant believes about 15 to 20 per cent of the public service remains unvaccinated. he said those employees should get their first dose of vaccine no later than oct. 31 to comply with a nov. 30 compliance date. otherwise, they will have to pay for their own covid tests on a regular basis to continue to work.
“we’re not going to fire anyone. our aim is to encourage and educate all the members of the public service to get vaccinated. we believe that’s the best, the safest, the most appropriate route to go.
“however, if at the end of the day an individual decides that they won’t get vaccinated, they don’t have an exemption, we can’t accommodate them and they do not want to get tested, then we would put them on unpaid leave.”
some albertans will view this as tough medicine, but for the vast majority of those who have gotten their vaccinations, this is all overdue and, for some, too little too late.
as for kenney, seeking and accepting help from trudeau is likely the toughest pill to swallow.
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licia corbella is a postmedia columnist in calgary.
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