{"id":402802,"date":"2026-01-09T21:43:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T21:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/402802\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T21:43:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T21:43:10","slug":"alberta-needs-to-call-state-of-emergency-over-crowded-hospitals-physicians-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/402802\/","title":{"rendered":"Alberta needs to call state of emergency over crowded hospitals, physicians say"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Text<\/p>\n

Listen to this article<\/p>\n

Estimated 4 minutes<\/p>\n

The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n

The situation in Alberta hospitals is so dire that the province needs to take drastic action, according to some physicians.<\/p>\n

Dr. Paul Parks, the president-elect of the section of emergency medicine with the Alberta Medical Association, is calling for the provincial government to declare a state of emergency at the urging of physicians from across the province and across hospital divisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s gotten to a crisis state where patients are dying in our waiting rooms and patients are having very bad outcomes because it\u2019s unsafe,\u201d he said in an interview on Thursday.<\/p>\n

As an example of this, Parks spoke about a situation in Edmonton this week where two patients were waiting for many hours in an emergency room offload waiting area \u2014 one for almost 72 hours and another for more than 48 hours \u2014 to be admitted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to declare it is a crisis \u2014 and tell us who\u2019s publicly going to lead this response, who\u2019s going to lead our provincial-wide disaster response-type team and help our teams get back to a semblance of safe and timely emergency and hospital care,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The appeal for a state of emergency comes just weeks after a 44-year-old man in Edmonton died after allegedly waiting eight hours to see a doctor in the emergency room<\/a>. The Alberta government has since ordered a review of what happened. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s daily carnage. The overload of human misery is tough to witness,\u201d Dr. Warren Thirsk, an emergency physician in Edmonton, said in an interview.<\/p>\n

\"ADr. Warren Thirsk is an emergency physician at two hospitals in Edmonton. (Samuel Martin\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Thirsk has been a physician for 25 years and said what he is witnessing in hospital settings now is the worst he has ever seen.<\/p>\n

He said he believes Alberta\u2019s growing \u2014 and aging \u2014 population has contributed to the situation and that space in hospitals has not kept up. It is patients who will suffer, he said.<\/p>\n

WATCH | Doctors call for drastic action to address problems facing Alberta hospitals:\"\"<\/p>\n

Edmonton doctors want state of emergency due to ER overflow<\/p>\n

Doctors in some Edmonton hospitals want the Alberta government to declare a state of emergency because they say there\u2019s not enough capacity to accept patients in emergency departments.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen there\u2019s no health care available for you because the beds are full, because the operating rooms are full, because there\u2019s no nurses, because there\u2019s no doctors, because there\u2019s no budget, then you\u2019re waiting,\u201d Thirsk said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think that there is a single unplanned medical event that people are comfortable with waiting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parameters of state of emergency<\/p>\n

A declaration of a state of emergency under Alberta\u2019s Public Health Act would allow the provincial government to temporarily centralize authority and rapidly mobilize resources, according to Stephanie Montesanti, a health policy professor at the University of Alberta.<\/p>\n

\"AStephanie Montesanti is a health policy professor at the University of Alberta. (Google Meet)<\/p>\n

\u201cIn practical terms, it can enable expedited funding, emergency staffing measures, rapid redeployment of beds and equipment across hospitals, patient transfers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But Montesanti said there are limits to such a declaration.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does not create hospitals beds or it doesn\u2019t result in more nurses, more physicians, \u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe state of emergency is really only a temporary solution, right? It\u2019s one tool, but it\u2019s not going to address those long-term, deeply rooted structural problems that we\u2019re seeing in the health-care system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Provincial government response<\/p>\n

Alberta\u2019s Ministry of Primary and Preventative Health Services pushed back against the plea to invoke a state of emergency.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe system is using all available resources; calls for a \u2018public health state of emergency\u2019 are misguided and would add nothing to what is already being done,” said Maddison McKee, the ministry’s press secretary. “Comparisons to the pandemic emergency of 2020 are not based on evidence.”<\/p>\n

Hospital and Surgical Health Services Minister Matt Jones was not available for an interview.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the ministry, which is more directly involved in hospital matters, said it values the perspectives of front-line physicians and maintains dialogue with health system partners to \u201cstrengthen\u201d emergency care in the province.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are working closely with Acute Care Alberta and health-care providers to co-ordinate provincially, regionally and locally, so that resources are available where and when they’re needed,\u201d reads the statement.<\/p>\n

It said that, in Edmonton, hospitals are implementing measures to preserve emergency room capacity and improve patient flow, by accelerating discharges and charges, limiting non-essential inbound transfers and opening designated surge spaces.<\/p>\n

The ministry also pointed to plans for 1,000 additional acute care beds, with new bed towers at Calgary’s South Health Campus, and at the Misericordia Community Hospital and the Grey Nuns Community Hospital in Edmonton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,137,500],"class_list":{"0":"post-402802","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}