By rdnewsNOW staff

maskwacis bands eligible

Province announces First Nations grant program to boost surgeries

Nov 8, 2020 | 5:03 PM

The four Cree nations at Maskwacis are included in a new Indigenous stream grant program that allows it to develop a proposal to be a part of Alberta’s plan to reduce surgical wait times in the province.

On Friday, Health Minister Tyler Shandro announced new and existing chartered surgical facilities will be significantly expanded to provide more publicly funded surgeries, leaving hospital operating rooms available to perform more complex surgeries.

“Partnerships with First Nations could be a big boost to the Alberta Surgical Initiative,” Shandro said, “helping us to eliminate the backlog from the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, and driving innovation to help us create the strongest surgical system in Canada.”

Alberta Health expects the expansion will happen in urban and rural communities across the province. A formal request for proposals will be posted by Alberta Health Services this fall.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March forced all scheduled surgeries to be put on hold until May 4, causing a backlog of surgeries. A 60 per cent reduction in surgeries caused a backlog of about 25,000 surgeries. So far, 88 per cent of that backlog has been cleared.

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Alberta has a plan to fully clear the backlog and will increase surgical activity volume to 150 per cent to meet its 2023 Alberta Surgical Initiative (ASI) platform commitment of providing all scheduled surgery within clinically acceptable times.

Shandro says he knows it will take hard work from the health-care industry, “but I know that they’ll do whatever it takes to do this, because it’s not my goal, it’s theirs.”