Connect with us
[the_ad id="89560"]

Alberta

Health Minister Adriana LaGrange charged with extensive to do list

Published

6 minute read

Minister of Health mandate letter

Premier Danielle Smith has issued a mandate letter to Minister of Health Adriana LaGrange calling on her to ensure Albertans have improved access to world-class health care.

In her letter, the Premier outlines her expectations that Alberta fosters an environment within AHS and the entire health community that welcomes innovation and incentivizes the best patient care within the pillars of the Canada Health Act so that no Albertan will ever have to pay out-of-pocket to see their doctor or receive a needed medical treatment. The Premier asks Minister LaGrange to deliver on platform commitments including:

  • Investing $6 million to add five more conditions to the Alberta Newborn Screening Program: congenital cytomegalovirus, argininosuccinic aciduria, guanidinoacetate methyltransferase deficiency, mucopolysaccharidosis type 1, and 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA lyase.
  • Adding more obstetrics doctors for communities in need, including Lethbridge and Fort McMurray.
  • Investing approximately $10 million to develop and implement a province-wide midwifery  strategy.
  • Providing the Alberta Women’s Health Foundation Legacy Grant – a one-time $10-million investment to support women-focused research, advocacy, and care.

The Premier also tasks Minister LaGrange with:

  • Resolving the unacceptable lab services delay challenge so that lab service access is timely across all areas of the province.
  • Continuing to improve emergency medical services response times, decrease surgical backlogs, and cut emergency room wait times.
  • Continuing to implement the recommendations from the Alberta EMS Provincial Advisory Committee and the PricewaterhouseCoopers EMS Dispatch Review to ensure EMS dispatch is being conducted in a way that provides the highest levels of service to Albertans in every part of the province, with special consideration for addressing local resources, challenges and concerns.
  • Supporting primary care as the foundation of our health care system by assessing alternative models of care and leveraging all health care professionals. This includes continuing the work of the Modernizing Alberta’s Primary Health Care System initiative, assessing alternative compensation models for family physicians and nurse practitioners, improving the management of chronic disease, and increasing the number of Albertans attached to a medical home.
  • Providing better care to seniors by implementing recommendations from the Facility-Based Continuing Care Review and the Advancing Palliative and End-of-life Care in Alberta report. This includes ongoing work to add continuing care congregate spaces and to help seniors stay in their homes longer with additional supports and appropriate home care.
  • Developing a series of reforms to the health care system that enhance local decision-making authority, improve health care services for all Albertans, and create a more collaborative working environment for our health care workers by incentivizing regional innovation and increasing our ability to attract and retain the health care workers we need.
  • Working to address rural health challenges such as access to health care professionals.
  • Working with municipalities, post-secondary institutions, doctors, and allied health providers to identify strategies to attract and retain health care workers to rural Alberta.
  • Collaborating with the Minister of Technology and Innovation to perform an independent review of the effectiveness of the information technology systems used throughout Alberta’s health system and provide recommendations on how to strengthen Alberta’s health-care system through the use of technology.
  • Working with the Minister of Advanced Education, who is the lead, to develop streamlined automated credentialing for front-line health care workers, doctors, nurses, and paramedics.
  • Addressing health care staffing challenges, particularly in rural areas, by:
    • Improving health workforce planning.
    • Evaluating retention policies.
    • Leveraging the scope of allied health professionals.
    • Working with the Minister of Immigration and Multiculturalism, who is lead, to streamline immigration and certification processes.
    • Increasing the number of training seats for health care professionals in Alberta.
    • Fully implementing the recently negotiated Alberta Medical Association agreement.
  • Working closely with the Minister of Mental Health and Addiction, who is the lead, to ensure that recovery from mental health and addiction and increasing the recovery capital of Albertans is a guiding policy in modernizing Alberta’s primary health care system.
  • Working with the Minister of Technology and Innovation, who is lead, to explore the feasibility of creating an Alberta health spending account to support improved health outcomes for Albertans.
  • Working with the Minister of Justice, who is the lead, to assess the proposed federal medical assistance in dying legislation amendments that would include those with mental health conditions and recommend Alberta’s regulation of the profession regarding this proposed legislation.
  • Designing a health ministry-specific job-attraction strategy that raises awareness for young Albertans (aged 16 to 24) and adults changing careers about the skilled trades and professions available in each economic sector, including pathways for education, apprenticeship, and training.

“Health care touches the lives of every Albertan. I look forward to working with our partners in health care delivery towards new and innovative solutions to address the commitments in my mandate letter. I truly believe by working together with our healthcare professionals to find solutions, we can ensure Alberta will have the best health care system in the country and indeed the world.”

Adriana LaGrange, Minister of Health

Alberta

Alberta introduces bill banning sex reassignment surgery on minors

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Alberta Conservative Premier Danielle Smith followed through on a promised bill banning so-called ‘top and bottom’ surgeries for minors.

Alberta Conservative Premier Danielle Smith made good on her promise to protect kids from extreme transgender ideology after introducing a bill banning so-called “top and bottom” surgeries for minors.

“It is so important that all youth can enter adulthood equipped to make adult decisions. In order to do that, we need to preserve their ability to make those decisions, and that’s what we’re doing,” Smith said in a press release.

“The changes we’re introducing are founded on compassion and science, both of which are vital for the development of youth throughout a time that can be difficult and confusing.”

Bill 26, the Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2024 “reflects the government’s commitment to build a health care system that responds to the changing needs of Albertans,” the government says.

The bill will amend the Health Act to “prohibit regulated health professionals from performing sex reassignment surgeries on minors.”

It will also ban the “use of puberty blockers and hormone therapies for the treatment of gender dysphoria or gender incongruence” to kids 15 and under “except for those who have already commenced treatment and would allow for minors aged 16 and 17 to choose to commence puberty blockers and hormone therapies for gender reassignment and affirmation purposes with parental, physician and psychologist approval.”

Alberta Minister of Health Adriana LaGrange, the bill’s sponsor, said the province’s legislative priorities include “implementing policy changes to continue our refocusing work, position our health care system to respond to pressures and public health emergencies, and to preserve choice for minors. These amendments reflect our dedication to ensuring our health care system meets the needs of every Albertan.”

Earlier this year, the United Conservative Party (UCP) provincial government under Smith announced  she would introduce the strong pro-family legislation that strengthens parental rights, protecting kids from life-altering, so-called “top and bottom” surgeries as well as other extreme forms of transgender ideology.

With Smith’s UCP holding a majority in the provincial legislature, the passage of Bill 26 is almost certain.

While Smith has done far more than predecessor Jason Kenney to satisfy social conservatives, she has been mostly soft on social issues such as abortion and has publicly expressed pro-LGBT views, telling Jordan Peterson that conservatives must embrace homosexual “couples” as “nuclear families.”

This weekend, thousands of UCP members will gather for the party’s annual general meeting, where Smith’s leadership will be voted on along with many other pro-freedom and family policy proposals from members. Smith is expected to pass her leadership review vote with a large majority.

Continue Reading

Alberta

Alberta court upholds conviction of Pastor Artur Pawlowski for preaching at Freedom Convoy protest

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

Lawyers argued that Pastor Artur Pawlowski’s sermon was intended to encourage protesters to find a peaceful solution to the blockade, but the statement was characterized as a call for mischief.

An Alberta Court of Appeal ruled that Calgary Pastor Artur Pawlowski is guilty of mischief for his sermon at the Freedom Convoy-related border protest blockade in February 2022 in Coutts, Alberta.

On October 29, Alberta Court of Appeal Justice Gordon Krinke sentenced the pro-freedom pastor to 60 days in jail for “counselling mischief” by encouraging protesters to continue blocking Highway 4 to protest COVID mandates.

“A reasonable person would understand the appellant’s speech to be an active inducement of the illegal activity that was ongoing and that the appellant intended for his speech to be so understood,” the decision reads.

Pawlowski addressed a group of truckers and protesters blocking entrance into the U.S. state of Montana on February 3, the fifth day of the Freedom Convoy-styled protest. He encouraged the protesters to “hold the line” after they had reportedly made a deal with Royal Canadian Mounted Police to leave the border crossing and travel to Edmonton.

“The eyes of the world are fixed right here on you guys. You are the heroes,” Pawlowski said. “Don’t you dare go breaking the line.”

After Pawlowski’s sermon, the protesters remained at the border crossing for two additional weeks. While his lawyers argued that his speech was made to encourage protesters to find a peaceful solution to the blockade, the statement is being characterized as a call for mischief.

Days later, on February 8, Pawlowski was arrested – for the fifth time – by an undercover SWAT team just before he was slated to speak again to the Coutts protesters.

He was subsequently jailed for nearly three months for what he said was for speaking out against COVID mandates, the subject of all the Freedom Convoy-related protests.

In Krinke’s decision, he argued that Pawlowski’s sermon incited the continuation of the protest, saying, “The Charter does not provide justification to anybody who incites a third party to commit such crimes.”

“While the appellant is correct that peaceful, lawful and nonviolent communication is entitled to protection, blockading a highway is an inherently aggressive and potentially violent form of conduct, designed to intimidate and impede the movement of third parties,” he wrote.

Pawlowski was released after the verdict. He has already spent 78 days in jail before the trial.

Pawlowski is the first Albertan to be charged for violating the province’s Critical Infrastructure Defence Act (CIDA), which was put in place in 2020 under then-Premier Jason Kenney.

The CIDA, however, was not put in place due to COVID mandates but rather after anti-pipeline protesters blockaded key infrastructure points such as railway lines in Alberta a few years ago.

Continue Reading

Trending

X