Alberta health-care cuts to include voluntary retirements

Alberta Health Services will use voluntary staff retirementsto cutanother$315 million from the provincialhealth-care budget in an attempt to erase a shortfall that is now at $1.1 billion, board CEO and president Stephen Duckett announced Wednesday.

"About 70 per cent of our spending is on salaries. We've actually got to trend that down. We've got to actually make sure that we've got enough funding to cover the costs of what we're providing," Duckett said.

The voluntary early-retirement program will roll out in the next few weeks.However, Duckett said mostof the positions that will be reduced will be innon-clinical areas, but some clinical positions might be cutif they don't hurtpatient care.

"We have made commitments about our access goals we want to reduce waiting times and so on," Duckettsaid. "So, as far as possible we'll be looking to have the impact fall where it doesn't impact on patients."

In a speech in Calgary on Tuesday, Duckett said he wanted to cut emergency room wait times in half over the next three years.

Operators of private surgical centres, assisted-living and long-term-care homes have also been asked to reduce their costs by three per cent. Covenant Health, which operates the Catholic hospitals in Edmonton, also must cut costs by three per cent.

'If they're serious about making these kinds of reductions, our public health-care system will look radically different from what it is today. For the worse.' David Eggen, Friends of Medicare

The $315-million budget reduction is in addition to $650 million in cuts that have been identified. Some of those cuts are underway and others will start in the next two months.

The annual budget for Alberta Health Services is currently $10.9 billion.It started the fiscal year with a $1.3-billion budget but that is now at $1.1 billion due to $200 million in savings, Duckett said.

However, Duckettoffered reporters few details about where the current and future cuts would be coming from.

Announcing a staff reduction at the same time ascommitting to reducing wait times doesn't add up,said David Eggen, executive director of public health-care advocacy group, Friends of Medicare.

"The double talk is astounding," Eggen said.

"If they're serious about making these kinds of reductions, our public health-care system will look radicallydifferent from what it is today. For the worse."

The announcement also had the president of the United Nurses of Alberta, Heather Smith, shaking her head.

"Less money and we're going to provide more and better? Less people and we're going to provide more and better? I don't think so," Smith said.

Not so long ago, nurses were working overtime to meet basic patient needs, Smith said. The layoffs of nurses in the 1990s ended up creating higher costs for the system, she said.

But Duckett said only people in positionsthe health-caresystem can afford to lose will be allowed to take early retirements.