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Apr 29, 2020 25 tweets 15 min read Read on X
@shandro @jkenney 1...Allow me to paint a metaphor. Imagine, you and your family are on a trip through the mountains. But your car is running a little hot. So you stop at a service station just before a long steep decline, maybe check the radiator and top up gas...2
@shandro @jkenney 2...While there the newly appointed owner of service station storms out and tells you it is UNSAFE to be driving your car in THESE mountains and you will require IMMEDIATE comprehensive "work" done on your car...3
@shandro @Jkenny 3...Meanwhile, a storm blows up to the point of white-out conditions. The shop owner sets his "technician" to work on your car. You find you can't even get answers from these guys as they push you aside, hoist your car and start pulling things apart...4
@shandro @jkenney 4...Stunned and bewildered, you finally accept the keys back to your car. But, finding no recourse (phone service is down in this storm), all you can do is load your family back in the car and set about your trip...5
@shandro @jkenney 5...As you start to descend the hill, you realize your brakes don't work. The road is slippery and you start to slide. You try to slow the car by gearing down but the transmission is shot as well...6
@shandro @jkenney 6...Then you receive a phone call (lo! the phones work, you are simply not allowed to phone out), its the technician from the service station. You come to quickly realize he has no qualifications at all, and that he has removed your brakes...7
@shandro @jkenney 7...he rebuilt your transmission on a whim, and now he is telling you how he plans to install your brakes over the phone, while you are quickly descending this icy hill, in a storm. You also gather from the phonecall...8
@shandro @jkenney 8...that your insurance has come through for the brake/transmission/engine rebuild (wait, what?) and your premiums have been seriously raised. If you and your family get out of this alive, what is going to be your response?...9
@shandro @jkenney 9...This is what has happened to your healthcare, Alberta. The new premier set his bulldog on the healthcare system, without any experience in the field. He ignored all consultation, all pleading from the experts...10
@shandro @jkenney 10...ignoring all the experts, he tore out components he didn't understand, they trumped up reports that didn't represent the truth, they slandered the experts to distance them from the public, all this while the COVID storm was brewing...11
@shandro @jkenney 11...then they let the "new system" role out straight into the COVID storm and they sat back waiting to see if the wheels would fall off. They let the public have to endure the mechanical failure of this new system...12
@shandro @jkenney 12...and only when they saw their electoral base might turn on them, did they "phone in" a solution, which amounted to simply walking back some of the damage THEY caused, ending that with applause to themselves...13
@shandro @jkenney 13...People of Alberta: you and your family are still in that car! You are still sliding out of control down that slippery hill with no brakes. You have no recourse but to try and manage through this with a govt that won't do more to fix this #Shandemic...14
@shandro @jkenney 14...than to walk back "some" of their atrocities. And, your taxes will launch through the roof, not just because of COVID, but because of all the hidden reckless spending this govt is doing on the side that they will later blame on COVID...15
@shandro @jkenney 15...If you and your family survive at the bottom of this hill, you need to seriously think about how you will bring this shop keeper and his "no qualifications" technician/hack into line for endangering your lives...16
@shandro @jkenney 16...Luckily we gremlins (oh yes, the shop owner and techno-hack blamed all your car's problems on gremlins) are hiding in your car, trying to jury rig some brakes for you. No matter what the shop owner/techno-hack said about us...17
@shandro @jkenney 17...No matter what the shop owner/techno-hack said about us, we are still trying to fix your car and save your family. When you can get out of the stopped car, phone your MLA and demand that this shop owner be held accountable...18
@shandro @jkenney 18...and that his techno-hack/bull dog be let go and hire a technician who knows his job. Only you, through STRONG WORDS with your MLAs can bring Kenney to task, and put Shandro out of the picture...19
@shandro @jkenney 19...We, the doctors of Alberta, continue to not abandon you, even when we were maligned, slandered, shackled, beaten down and forced to the brink of collapse. We told you we wouldn't. We put all our personal risk aside (financial, health, family)...20
@shandro @jkenney 20...and we soldiered on to keep our patients out of harms way as best we could. But, now is the time for the public to tell this govt that they won't take any more manipulation and exploitation...Albertans look out for each other...21
@shandro @jkenney 21...The doctors looked out for the patients, because we are Albertans. The govt didn't look out for you, they merely "phoned in" a partial walk-back when they feared your retribution. The public needs to continue to push back on these crooks...22
@shandro @jkenney 22...and the public will continue to push back on these crooks because they too are Albertans. They realize we had their backs, now they will have ours. Tell @shandro and @jkenney that their partial walkback is not enough...23
@shandro @jkenney 23..the UCP will make you pay full taxes for a full system anyways, you might as well have a full healthcare system still! Ask your MLAs why the UCP continues to cut care for complex chronic illness, why the UCP still won't cover healthcare for the homeless..24
@shandro @jkenney 24..and ask your MLA why the UCP still wants to jeopardize healthcare by keeping a precarious situation where essential workers can't have a contract, nor arbitration. Just how does the UCP think this will play out?...25
@shandro @jkenney 25...You know they are gambling a losing hand, but the stakes are the lives and wellbeing of you and your family. Tell them to stop using your future as the money they are willing to lose at this poker game

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More from @John1MD

Apr 28
Forgive me if the details are wrong, I'm only a family doc. And Alberta's penchant for screwing over doctors and patients is immense.

It has come to my awareness that patients being admitted to hospital with active opioid use disorder (what conservatives would call addicts)...2
2...will now be disallowed essentially anything to help them stay out of withdrawal. Regardless of why they are there, their only option will be opioid antagonists. Further, there will be a pathway established towards detainment?...3
3...(again, if I have the details wrong, please forgive). I think there is also rules put in place that if a doctor tries to help these patients stay out of withdrawal, they could immediately lose their privileges AND face a $100K fine?...4
Read 4 tweets
Apr 26
@ABDanielleSmith @AdrianaLaGrange @DShepYEG @Lorian_H

A number of my colleagues have reviewed the Nurse Practitioner Primary Care Program and have noted, in many ways that this is a Plan far superior to what family docs are getting in the province, and yet...2
2...and yet, many nurse practitioners are already rejecting the Program as not good enough for them. So Albertans, are you getting value for your money? Is the govt ACTUALLY trying to solve the family medicine crisis?...3 Image
3...Or is @ABDanielleSmith's only plan to destroy family docs practices in order to pave the way for patient-directly-pays private primary care? Because, that "declining the offer" screenshot in post #2? This is what that NP clinic is going back to:...4 Image
Read 10 tweets
Apr 19
The crisis in LTC/SL4 is deepening. More deaths from neglect this week. This information gets obscured by demands of patient confidentiality, and the patient group being unseen (how can you be seen when you can’t leave, can’t speak, can’t reason). Many don’t have families…2
2…they reside in facilities that are horribly under-staffed. The nurses there practicing war-zone care. The paramedics and doctors helping out have to try to be at 8 facilities at the same time. The crises start to stack on top of each other…3
3…falls go unwitnessed. Pressure sores drill to the bone. Dehydration becomes a common cause of death. What hellscape have we let our continuing care become???…4
Read 6 tweets
Feb 3
@CPSA_CA, I hear you are in trouble. I hear your days are numbered, and as such, the days of doctors being self-regulated in this province.

Whomever of you that may read this...I want you to think on this: the CPSA's official position on disallowing family doctors to partake...2
2...in job action is partially to blame for where we are now (that includes the precariousness of your future existence). By making it so dire for family doctors to take action to represent themselves, you have inadvertently allowed a corrupt govt to take us to...3
3...the gates of hell before we see reprimand from you as being less risky than staying quiet. But, you may counter that your concern is not with the health of doctors' practices, but with the viability of patient's access. This is naive and shallow reasoning...4
Read 10 tweets
Oct 21, 2023
I am a family doctor in Red Deer Alberta. Yesterday a wheelchair-bound patient of mine came to the clinic to have a cyst removed off his leg that was causing him lots of troubles. There was no plausible way to get him on a table...2
2...Referring him to a specialist at a hospital with support staff to get him on the table would have cost months if not years in time, many hundreds in specialist fees, maybe thousands in hospital fees...3
3...I created (as best as I could) a sterile field on his lower leg. Then I rigged my equipment tray to be at ankle level, and I crawled under my desk (cramped exam rooms b/c that's what FamDocs can afford) and I drained/excised his cyst...4
Read 8 tweets
May 23, 2023
Dear moderate Alberta conservatives that are uncomfortable with where the UCP has gone: realize the party won’t splinter while in power. You will not be able to eject the RWNJs until the UCP are ejected from power…2
2…But the moment they do get ejected they will indeed splinter apart. Every day that the moderates and the extremists remain “united” is another day the rest of the province/country sees you as indistinguishable from each other…3
3…The fastest way for you to regain control of your party, and not surrender more of it to TBA is to throw the election. Lend your vote to the NDP…4
Read 7 tweets

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