kcantor said:
Maybe the Province could work with the Province to acquire these for Edmonton instead of spending dollars planning for things that never get built? They might even serve as a better visual reminder than just vacant land of what’s needed and in the interim at least take some of the stress off our existing hospitals and ERs.

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This would make too much sense! Also, Alberta wouldn't want to cooperate with or pay the Feds anything. Although maybe they could be sent to Ukraine along with Alberta's expiring pain medication.
 
GP is getting a brand new facility right next to their brand new hospital….

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Maskwa Medical Center - Advancing Health in Northwestern Alberta

Discover Maskwa Medical Center, a pioneering not-for-profit in Alberta, dedicated to enhancing access to specialized medical services for the Peace Region.
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MacLac said:
Crickets on our end……meanwhile in Mississauga
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14 billion? Insane. It reminds me of the 10 billion that will be spent to upgrade the Montreal airport. Canadian governments spend money like drunken sailors with little regard for the impact on taxed out citizens. Imagine if they spent 14 billion on preventative treatment to help make Canadians healthier, make wiser eating and lifestyle choices and exercise more regularly.
 
Whatup said:
14 billion? Insane. It reminds me of the 10 billion that will be spent to upgrade the Montreal airport. Canadian governments spend money like drunken sailors with little regard for the impact on taxed out citizens. Imagine if they spent 14 billion on preventative treatment to help make Canadians healthier, make wiser eating and lifestyle choices and exercise more regularly.
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14 billion on bike lanes. 😍
 
Yes, more spending on preventative care would help, but governments of course are so short sighted and don't do enough because it is easy to cut this out of the annual budgets.

They also put off big capital projects as long as they can and of course the price tag goes just up and up over time. However, eventually it all has to be paid for one way or another.

Sound familiar?
 
Whatup said:
14 billion? Insane. It reminds me of the 10 billion that will be spent to upgrade the Montreal airport. Canadian governments spend money like drunken sailors with little regard for the impact on taxed out citizens. Imagine if they spent 14 billion on preventative treatment to help make Canadians healthier, make wiser eating and lifestyle choices and exercise more regularly.
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Any major hospital has plenty of outpatient clinics and routine follow-up with patients. Preventative and ongoing care are a huge part of many such visits, and expanding hospital capacity is necessary to meet the growing need for this. Hospitals aren't just for inpatients on a medicine ward, the ICU, post-op surgical admits, or the ED. You want to know what would be irresponsible? Increasing our population without concomitant increases in funding to services and infrastructure, healthcare being just one example. One cannot complain about wait times and then also complain when we expand healthcare infrastructure, which obviously is going to cost money. 14 billion to construct this over how many years is really not "insane" when you compare it to our annual GDP or the government's budget. Our debt-to-GDP ratio is lower than that of the US and is comparable to most G7 countries aside from Germany (which has been very prudent with managing debt) before someone brings up debt and deficits.

Preventative care outside of hospitals has a role to play in all of this. For example, any family medicine practice has a multitude of patients who have been provided counselling and resources on how to manage diabetes through exercise and dieting. Diabetes is a great example because it costs the healthcare system so much, but the amount of resources we have put into preventative care is really quite impressive - we would almost for sure be spending more without such measures. For example, many patients are connected with dedicated diabetic educators who provide additional support on top of PCPs in management and education of DM. Physicians can also "prescribe" exercise in some jurisdictions, which can help to remove financial barriers to accessing a gym or a physiotherapist. Unfortunately, the reality is that many people do not make lasting sustainable changes to their diet, exercise, or sleep habits despite extensive counselling. It's just frankly not true that we don't meaningfully invest in preventative care. One of the best things we can do right now to up our game would be to rectify the family physician shortage.
 
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Garceyues said:
One of the best things we can do right now to up our game would be to rectify the family physician shortage.
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What's noted above is so important - the further along any physical or mental health condition progresses without diagnosis and treatment, the more costly it will be to treat and the less successful the outcome.

But among the biggest costs in our HC system are end of life care - when quality of life is also its poorest.
 
Garceyues said:
Any major hospital has plenty of outpatient clinics and routine follow-up with patients. Preventative and ongoing care are a huge part of many such visits, and expanding hospital capacity is necessary to meet the growing need for this. Hospitals aren't just for inpatients on a medicine ward, the ICU, post-op surgical admits, or the ED. You want to know what would be irresponsible? Increasing our population without concomitant increases in funding to services and infrastructure, healthcare being just one example. One cannot complain about wait times and then also complain when we expand healthcare infrastructure, which obviously is going to cost money. 14 billion to construct this over how many years is really not "insane" when you compare it to our annual GDP or the government's budget. Our debt-to-GDP ratio is lower than that of the US and is comparable to most G7 countries aside from Germany (which has been very prudent with managing debt) before someone brings up debt and deficits.

Preventative care outside of hospitals has a role to play in all of this. For example, any family medicine practice has a multitude of patients who have been provided counselling and resources on how to manage diabetes through exercise and dieting. Diabetes is a great example because it costs the healthcare system so much, but the amount of resources we have put into preventative care is really quite impressive - we would almost for sure be spending more without such measures. For example, many patients are connected with dedicated diabetic educators who provide additional support on top of PCPs in management and education of DM. Physicians can also "prescribe" exercise in some jurisdictions, which can help to remove financial barriers to accessing a gym or a physiotherapist. Unfortunately, the reality is that many people do not make lasting sustainable changes to their diet, exercise, or sleep habits despite extensive counselling. It's just frankly not true that we don't meaningfully invest in preventative care. One of the best things we can do right now to up our game would be to rectify the family physician shortage.
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As someone with type 1 diabetes, you can see the changes the GOA has made since it considered cancelling the pump program. More specialized diabetic clinics have been set up that can issue orders to get onto the pump program instead of the reverse. They have made a concerted effort to ensure the waitlist for the pump program gets shorter. I think the Premier and Health Ministry heard a lot of feedback from diabetics about wait times to access the pump, and they reversed course on a decision and improved access. I know there are a lot of holes and gaps in our system as a whole, but I've seen the change in preventative care for diabetes in the last couple of years. It didn't take long to implement those changes. Hopefully, other programs are seeing similar changes. Given the prevalence of diabetes, though, it is exciting to see them encourage more people to pump AND to use looping to manage the pump (which is even more insane to me that they are encouraging). For those not familiar, looping essentially runs an algorithm on your phone to automate insulin delivery based on 5-minute increment data from a continuous blood glucose monitor and your insulin pump. You enter carbs, and the application does the rest based on your baseline information. While diet is still important, it's not as critical in this setup as your a1c gets into territory that is widely considered safe over the long term.

I know people like to dunk on the province, including myself, but I think it is important to acknowledge positive changes they have made, too.
 
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