We have heard over and over again that Alberta Health Services and the so-called “superboard” that took over from the various regional boards in the province in 2009, has a few problems.
Many different groups have raised concerns about the loss of local decision-making, about an increased bureaucracy that’s preventing money from reaching the front lines and about employees being afraid to talk about what’s happening in the system.
These concerns are very real, and every Albertan should pay attention to what’s going on. After all, health-care spending makes up a very significant portion of where our tax dollars are going, and consistently ranks highest on Albertans’ concerns.
In Westlock we’ve recently seen some of these problems come to light, after a Feb. 16 wildcat strike saw about 60 employees walk off the job. We tried to talk to employees directly about what their concerns were, but nobody would go on record for fear of disciplinary action from their employer.
Labour negotiations and strike action are nothing new, and are best left to the union and employer to iron out the details.
The taxpayers who fund this organization, though, deserve to know what’s happening — both at the highest levels of the organization and on the front lines.
If employees are afraid to talk and media can only get information through a handful of public relations staff, the public isn’t going to get the full story.
Unfortunately, it has now got worse.
The recent tentative agreement between the health board and the union representing support workers across the province is certainly good news as any sort of prolonged strike action would obviously have some worrisome implications for health-care delivery in the province.
What’s worrisome here is that instead of having to rely on media relations staff to find out what’s happening in our health-care system, we’ve now been told they won’t even talk about this issue.
We were told we’d have to rely on the union’s information on this matter, as is reflected in our story about the tentative agreement.
By not even speaking with the media about this agreement with 22,000 of its workers, Alberta Health Services has further isolated itself from any sort of accountability to the public.
This is a dangerous precedent in what’s supposed to be a free and open society.
