Today at hockey I had a chat with a team-mate, an ER doctor. She is some kind of pissed off at the UCP. She said the reduction in pay for doctors who work in hospitals didn't bug her as much, although it doesn't take into account the stress ER and ICU doctors face...#AbLeg 1/20
But the things they have done with billing for complex care patients is unconscionable. She deals on a daily basis with patients she has never seen before who present with incredibly complex constellations of conditions... 2/20
You get patients who are non-verbal, with diabetes, muscular dystrophy, and heart disease, who now have something new, for example. 3/20
People with compromised immune systems, congenital problems, cognitive issues, mental health issues, addictions, severe injuries, chronic diseases, dementia... often in combination. 4/20
And in an urban ER, there can be a lot of complex patients at once. So doctors are pressed to get around to everyone as quickly as they can, but while being thorough and accurate in diagnosing and creating treatment plans. 5/20
Work conditions are stretching doctors and nurses to the limit already. And now the government wants to pay them less. I have known this woman for years. She is a wonderful person and incredibly dedicated to her work and her patients. 6/20
I feel it is incredibly short-sighted and callous of the UCP to try to cut pay for medical professionals. There is a global pandemic and the UCP has chosen this moment to alienate our health care-givers. 7/20
I feel it is entirely possible that Jason Kenney and his party don't give a flying f@《k about people with complex health conditions. After all, many of them are unable to work to optimum levels and, therefore, represent a net loss to the provincial bottom line. 8/20
I believe the premier referred to such people as having "lower human capital". Because to modern conservatives, regular, non-billionaire humans are only worth what they can contribute to the accumulation of wealth of a select few. 9/20
It's elegant in its deviousness, this strategy. Break the universal healthcare system by burning out/alienating/driving away doctors and other health care professionals, then you get to bring in for-profit medicine to fix things (and bolster the bottom lines of insurance... 10/20
Companies and private for-profit hospitals and clinics). Along the way, as an added benefit, you thin the herd of people who are not properly contributing to the accumulation of wealth. 11/20
And the base will love it, because they have been taught that doctors and other fancy-pants experts are just a drain on the province. Overpaid, lazy, too educated... probably look down on oil patch workers, so we should hate them for their many years of dedication and... 12/20
Advanced education. If they'd been regular Albertans they would have quit school and gone and done real work, amiright? Bet not a one of them could work as hard as a rigger... All they do all day is hold dying children and try to comfort families, 13/20
Walk around in blood and urine and vomit and try to keep hearts beating. Spend hours researching work-arounds for conditions where the cure for one thing will kill their patient because of this other thing... 14/20
But, obviously, Alberta will be much better off once the UCP has cleared out all the "socialist" medicine and installed health care professionals who only treat those who can afford to pay. Obviously. Because. 15/20
Sorry, needed to rant. It breaks my heart to see my DR friend so upset. It breaks my heart to see so many fellow Albertans think we would be better off without universal health care. I ask myself, can they be so stupid? Can they not see the health care crisis in the US? 16/20
Are they so far down the right-wing rabbit hole that they would rather have people die than support a system they have been told is "socialist/communist"? 17/20
If you were born after 1960 and lived your life in Canada, you wouldn't remember what it was like before universal health care. It was introduced in 1964. Before then, people died because they couldn't afford the doctor. 18/20
Poor people had to watch their children die because they couldn't afford the hospital. I don't remember, but my parents and grandparents told me. Maybe others were not fortunate enough to have this context to base opinion on. 19/20
But we do have an example to the south of us. Families should never be destroyed because someone is ill and they can't afford treatment. I urge Albertans to do some research. And vote the UCP out next election. #AlbertaCantAffordTheUCP 20/20
