Canada: Alberta healthcare system on verge of collapse as Covid cases and anti-vax sentiments rise

A province that has long boasted of its loose coronavirus restrictions has also been the site of North America’s highest caseloads

Leyland Cecco in Toronto
Wed 15 Sep 2021 11.30 BST

A surge in coronavirus cases has pushed the healthcare system in the Canadian province of Alberta to the verge of collapse, as healthcare workers struggle against mounting exhaustion and a growing anti-vaccine movement in the region.

The province warned this week that its ICU capacity was strained, with more people requiring intensive care than any other point during the pandemic – nearly all of them unvaccinated.

“It’s not easy to go to work every day and watch people in their 30s die,” an ICU nurse in Edmonton told the Guardian. “Having to help a family say goodbye and then going through the actions that are required at the end of someone’s life, is worse than anyone can imagine.”

Alberta has long boasted of its loose coronavirus restrictions – including advertising the previous months as the “best summer ever” as it rolled back those few restrictions. It has also been the site of North America’s highest caseloads.

In a province with a long history of skepticism towards government, the pandemic has become fertile ground for protests and anti-vaccine rhetoric, including from elected officials, firefighters and police officers. During the ongoing federal election, the People’s Party of Canada, a fringe rightwing party that has come out against public health measures has seen its largest support base in rural Alberta.

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Alberta doctors warn health care system on verge of collapse

Bill Macfarlane
CTV News Calgary Video Journalist

Updated Sept. 14, 2021 10:12 p.m. EDT
Published Sept. 13, 2021 10:31 p.m. EDT

CALGARY - A group of Alberta doctors are warning the health care system in the province could collapse under the weight of surging COVID hospitalizations by early October unless the province takes decisive action.

"It will not be able to handle people who come in with complications from their pregnancy, or who've been in more vehicle collisions, or who need life saving cancer surgery," said Dr. James Talbot, one of the authors of the warning.

He said in addition to hundreds of cancelled surgeries due to staffing shortages, the medical system is preparing to start using a triage protocol for patients, in other words deciding who will get the increasingly limited resources available.

"Plan for a situation in which you would not have enough beds for everyone. And that's what the triage protocol is. It's about who lives and who dies,” Talbot, a former Alberta chief medical officer of health said.

He said the dire projections do not take into account accelerated spread caused by the return to school or increased indoor gatherings with the coming cooler weather.

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