Lee

🇨🇦 Albertan fighting for Canada. Don't turn away from injustice.

[Lee @TLLPST_]

@EdmontonOilers @Ms_KittyBlack Great post. I am here to find some bigots to blockety block.

[Lee @TLLPST_]

@JayBart239777 @DavidEccle2746 @EdmontonOilers Blockety Block.

[Edmonton Oilers @EdmontonOilers]

Happy Pride! 🌈 #LetsGoOilers

[🇨🇦🌻🤔🌈 @MgtmMoisan]

Oh look, @ABDanielleSmith! Premier KINEW really did hire doctors, whereas you just lie about it.

[Lee @TLLPST_]

@TheBreakdownAB Huh? She's so incompetent .

[Dr. Raj Sherman @RajSherman]

Activity Based Funding Alone Will Not Fix Alberta's Healthcare Crisis:

Alberta is moving forward with Activity Based Funding (ABF), where hospitals and surgical facilities are paid according to the number and complexity of procedures they perform.

Let's start with an important point: this is not inherently a bad idea.

When properly designed, Activity Based Funding can improve efficiency, increase transparency, reward productivity, and reduce wait times for procedures such as cataracts, hip replacements, knee replacements, and day surgery.

High performing healthcare systems in Australia and Scandinavia have successfully incorporated versions of ABF into their funding models.

But those same jurisdictions teach us an important lesson.

They do not rely on Activity Based Funding in isolation. They pair it with robust investments in primary care, prevention, home care, rehabilitation, assisted living, long term care, community-based services, and significantly greater acute care capacity.

These countries maintain approximately 3.8 to 4.2 acute care beds per 1,000 population. Alberta has approximately 1.76 beds/1000, less than half.

This capacity gap, combined with blocked patient flow, is Alberta's fundamental healthcare challenge.

After 35 years in the front lines, I can say with confidence that once Albertans gain access to care, they generally receive world-class care. Access is the problem.

Every day, sick Albertans sit in crowded emergency department waiting rooms wondering why the system is failing them.

Many assume the problem starts in the emergency department. It does not.

The emergency department is where the failure becomes visible.

For decades, Alberta's population has grown faster than its healthcare capacity. Our population is aging, chronic disease is increasing, and medical care is becoming more complex.

At the same time, hundreds of patients who no longer require acute hospital care remain in hospital beds because they are waiting for home care, rehabilitation, transition units, assisted living, or long-term care.

Hospitals are designed to treat acute illness, not to house patients waiting for the next level of care.

Healthcare is fundamentally a flow system and we have a major flow problem, especially in the Edmonton zone.

Patients enter through primary care, emergency departments, and ambulance services. They move through hospitals and, when ready, back into the community through home care, rehabilitation, assisted living, and long-term care. When any part of that flow becomes blocked, the entire system slows down.

That is exactly what Albertans are experiencing today.

Hospitals function best at approximately 85% occupancy. Above that level, delays increase, flexibility disappears, and patient flow slows. When hospitals routinely operate at 100-110% capacity, they do not become more efficient, they become less safe.

The consequences are predictable and preventable.

Emergency departments back up. EMS crews wait to transfer patients into care. Admitted patients board on stretchers waiting for inpatient beds. Surgeries are delayed or cancelled. Patients may be discharged earlier than ideal because of bed pressures, increasing the risk of complications and readmissions.

Most concerning, the risk of medical errors rises when healthcare professionals are forced to work in overcrowded, high-pressure environments for prolonged periods.

Chronic overcrowding contributes to burnout, moral distress, absenteeism, staff turnover and less efficiency. Asking healthcare workers to function indefinitely in crisis mode is neither sustainable nor safe.

Public hospitals managing complex admissions, emergencies, and Alternate Level of Care patients cannot fairly compete in a pure activity-based funding model against facilities focused primarily on lower-complexity elective procedures.

Changing the funding formula will not solve these structural issues.

If Alberta is serious about improving access and reducing wait times, our priorities should be clear:
1. Retain, recruit, and support healthcare workers.
2. Expand acute care capacity, particularly in Edmonton, which serves a vast and underserved northern region.
3. Move Alternate Level of Care patients to the appropriate level of care within 24-48 hours whenever possible.
4. Expand home care, rehabilitation, transition units, assisted living, and long-term care.
5. Strengthen primary care, prevention, and community-based services.

The single most important performance measure in healthcare is not the number of procedures performed. It is how quickly patients receive the right care, in the right place, at the right time.

A patient who requires admission should move from the emergency department to an inpatient bed within six to eight hours, 90% of the time.

Even in the middle of summer, many Edmonton patients are waiting four to six hours simply to be assessed by a physician. Another respiratory virus season is only months away.

Activity Based Funding may improve surgical efficiency and deserves a fair evaluation. But Albertans should not mistake a funding reform for a healthcare solution.

Until we fix the bottlenecks at both the entry and exit doors of our hospitals, our emergency departments and inpatient wards will remain overcrowded and inefficient regardless of how hospitals are funded.

The biggest bottleneck in Alberta healthcare is not the operating room…It's patient flow…It's the hospital entry and exit door.

@ABDanielleSmith @nenshi @PfParks @JMeddings @raghu_venugopal @TheSGEM @TheBreakdownAB @RealTalkRJ @cspotweet @BradenMannsYYC @UCPCaucus @abndpcaucus

[Kelly Rudyk @kellyrudyk]

She is a separatist. The lengths she had Forever Canada go versus bending the rules and now looking past breaking the law for her base is gobsmacking. #UCPFail

[Jason Scott 🇨🇦 @JasonOnTheDrums]

#ableg

Picture of the 4-biggest threats to Canada.

[cm @cmcalgary]

#abpoli

https://t.co/A8zNO6z9uM

[Louis Duclos @ObsDelphi]

🇺🇸🇨🇦L'ambassadeur états-unien au Canada soutient la revendication de Trump de faire du Canada le 51ème État.

Il est difficile de comprendre même comment un ambassadeur officiel peut oser poster un message pareil.

Il nie littéralement le droit à l'existence de l'État dans lequel il est en poste. Il insulte l'entièreté des Canadiens et leurs institutions démocratiques. C'est une atteinte profonde à l'indépendance même du Canada. Bref, c'est un immense insulte diplomatique.

Cette diplomatie de l'insulte voulue par Trump n'a pourtant presque jamais porté ses fruits. D'America First, Trump se dirige vers un America Alone ce qui ne semble pas l'inquiéter plus que cela. Il semble déterminé à faire ce qu'il veut sans se soucier des conséquences de ses actes une fois qu'il ne sera plus au pouvoir.

Pour le Canada, ce post de l'ambassadeur US est une insulte intolérable et mérite amplement son renvoi immédiat. Ottawa et Washington ont toujours été extrêmement proches et voir ainsi les USA saccager la relation entre le Canada et les États-Unis, c'est vraiment un coup de poignard dans le dos.

Que restera-t-il de cette relation bilatérale lorsque Trump sera parti ? Des accords pourront être signés à nouveau, et sans doute qu'il y en aura, mais la confiance et l'amitié entre les peuples mettra des décennies à se réparer.

Bon courage aux Canadiens, il reste encore 2 ans et demi à tenir.

[Lee @TLLPST_]

@USAmbCanada Fuck you. Forever.

[Lee @TLLPST_]

@unfamericatour @ckenny8799 😂

[Lee @TLLPST_]

@guyfelicella I am from Alberta and feel the same. He is a horrible man.

[VisuallyBetter @Isuckatpicking]

How is this not a bigger story? Why haven’t people involved been arrested? Thousands of people (probably not in Alberta). My God!!!

[Clinton Desveaux @ClintonDesveaux]

The problem with Alberta isn’t Albertans or Alberta itself - it’s the kooks who control and influence the UCP and the provincial government. The chem-trail conspiracy types, anti-vaxxers, anti-metric-system cranks, anti-gay hardliners, Maple MAGA mind virus crowd, and the night-watchman libertarian dudes who fancy themselves authoritarians - they’re the ones who have damaged Alberta, and we all know it. The problem is the CPC and UCP leaders and key caucus people are cowards who give voice to the far right unfortunately.

[Lee @TLLPST_]

@TheBreakdownAB That can't be Danielle Smith. What?

[Mia @MiaForTrump]

This is retired Army Staff Sergeant Sean Ortega, the first openly trans service member. He served three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and was involved in 400 combat missions.

RETWEET to wish Staff Sergeant Ortega a Happy Pride Month and Happy Veterans Month!

[Martina Navratilova @Martina]

Yup

[Lee @TLLPST_]

@ThisIsMeCassie @IAMSMRT1 I will start asking who businesses who they support.

[Lee @TLLPST_]

@RepJackKimble 🤣