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The provincial agency that manages Alberta’s acute care delivery system has laid off eight senior managers.
In a statement, a spokesperson with Acute Care Alberta (ACA) said the organization “felt it necessary to realign our leadership structure” as it continues to “mature into its mandate.”
In an interview with CBC News on Thursday, Dr. Sayeh Zielke, interim chief executive officer of ACA, confirmed eight senior leaders had left the organization.
She wouldn’t confirm which departments those leaders were in charge of.
But a note sent to staff on Tuesday and obtained by CBC News listed a number of acting leaders put into new positions, including a new executive lead of provincial programs, as well as new leads in trauma care, emergency care, women’s health, medicine care, and more.
ACA is one of the four provincial health agencies in Alberta, established in 2025 after the government moved to restructure Alberta Health Services.
As the restructure has played out, a variety of high-profile leadership shakeups have followed, including the departure of Dr. Peter Jamieson as Alberta Health Services’ chief medical officer and vice-president in June.
Over the past several months, medical leaders have said the front lines of Alberta’s health system are struggling with emergency wait times and system overcrowding.
Alberta Hospital and Surgical Health Services Minister Adriana LaGrange told reporters on Wednesday that the plan is for triage liaison physicians to start at the Rockyview General Hospital and the University of Alberta hospital this weekend. (Jo Horwood/CBC)
Asked Wednesday about the departures from ACA, Alberta Hospital and Surgical Health Services Minister Adriana LaGrange said the provincial agency’s leadership had made their own decisions about personnel.
“I’m sure that they have things well in hand … so that they can address the issues in front of them,” LaGrange said.
Opposition NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi, meanwhile, said that generally there is “utter chaos” in the health-care system as the restructuring continues.
“They’re making it up as they go along,” Nenshi told reporters.
Triage liaison physicians to be put in place this weekend
At the end of this week, LaGrange said the province would implement triage liaison physicians — emergency physicians who will monitor patients in crowded waiting rooms for health crises — at the Rockyview General Hospital in Calgary and the University of Alberta Hospital in Edmonton.
That plan was originally promised in January, after 44-year-old Prashant Sreekumar died waiting for care in the emergency room of Edmonton’s Grey Nuns Community Hospital.
Negotiations had to be conducted with the Alberta Medical Association, which contributed to the delay, according to LaGrange.
“We would like to see it in our big 16 hospitals, and we will be actively making sure that our health care providers, our service providers, are able to recruit into those sites,” LaGrange said.
In a statement, the ACA wrote that the program would expand to additional sites in the coming weeks.
It declined to comment further on the eight departures, referring to it as an internal human resources matter.