Healthy Debate

This morning I led a small HSAA delegation to meet with the Minister’s Advisory Committee on Health (MACH), which is doing a comprehensive review of Alberta’s health legislation.  The committee, chaired by MLA Fred Horne, is meeting with ’stakeholders’ to gather input.  (UNA, CUPE and AUPE were also part of this consultation meeting, and The unions were in full agreement on virtually all issues.)

We emphasized to the committee the HSAA position on health care that supports not only the principles of the Canada Health Act(universality, accessibility, comprehensiveness, portability and public administration), but also the public provision of care.  At the same time, we stressed that while we prefer public delivery, we take the position that the people doing the work deserve union representation just like every other worker, and that we will not hesitate to bring them into our union if they currently work for a private provider.  And we will certainly fight to follow them to a private provider if services are contracted out!

A key concern is that a new Act may simply be a broad ‘enabling’ statute, that provides some very broad strokes, and then allows the Minister to fill in the detail with regulations.  Regulations can be changedwithout any debate in the Legislature, and potentially without either notice or consultation.  Given statements by government and AHS CEO Stephen Duckett, it is clear that further privatization has not been ruled out, in spite of the HRG bankruptcy.

A lesson to learn – for-profit companies buy a building at firesale prices, then get contracts to do surgeries for more money than it costs in the private system, and do not have to provide the emergency care when things go wrong.  Their shareholders earn dividends, the leaders earn big salaries, and when the thing goes belly up, we the taxpayer get to pay even more to ensure that patients get their surgeries.  Does this make sense for your tax dollar?

I also raised the ongoing staff shortages, the fact that positions either drop off the face of the earth when they become vacant, or get bottlenecked in the Kafka-esque ‘vacancy management process (which may now be named something else).  Shifting anyone to the private sector does not provide more services in total, in fact it may lead to less access.

Long-term care was raised by several participants.  I reminded the committee that changing a name (continuing Care to ‘Assisted Daily Living”doesn’t make a long term care patient more independent, it just switches costs of care to their pockets.

We also spoke about the desireability to ensure that all professionals work to their full scope of practice, and that we shouldn’t necessarily need to see a physician to get a referral.  In this iday of computers and ‘help lines’, we should surely be able to develop some decision making tools that will take us directly to the most appropriate professional.  At the same time, UNA Vice President Bev Dick urged that in shifting care to other disciplines, we need to look at the whole picture, rather than fragmenting tasks just to download them to less expensive workers.

This consultation follows a similar meeting on Tuesday with Lloyd Snelgrove, President of the Treasury Board,  about the next budget.  Here we again emphasized public helath care, but also urged the Treasury Board to consider the longer term when planning budgets, and to look at the revenue side of the ledger, and to avoid the mantra of tax cuts at any cost.  We get the public services we need by paying our taxes. Interestingly, even a representative of the oil industry made this point, though he wanted the government to consider a sales tax to fund public services.

I know of at least two members who have been confirmed to participate in the “MACH” meetings, and would encourage every one of you to provide your perpsectives.  Simply go to the Governmetn of Alberta’s web site and follow the icon to ‘Your Alberta Health Act’

Wishing you a fine weekend, now that the sun is shining (at least for the moment!).

Elisabeth

On behalf of the entire membership and board of HSAA, I want to extend a warm welcome to the members who will now be represented by our union. 

The government decision to consolidate health regions into the single entity called Alberta Health Services (AHS) has resulted in the transfer of many Emergency Medical Services (EMS), inlcuding the Inter Facility Transfer Service in Edmonton, and former employees of the Alberta Alcohol and Drug Addiction Commission into the HSAA paramedical professional and technical bargaining unit.

Because of the legal challenges that resulted, the question of union representation has been uncertain for some time.  We have fully respected the right of the former unions to bring those challenges.  A decision of the Court of Queen’s Bench on May 18 confirmed the transfer.  Yesterday we received confirmation that no further appeals would follow. 

Changing unions, especially involuntarily, is not easy.  We develop our own cultures, practices and loyalties, and that must be respected.  Nevertheless, with this decision, it is now important that we achieve the transition into HSAA as promptly as possible.  Our staff have been busy planning meetings for the new members, and notification of these will be sent out early next week.  Many of the affected members have been without a collective agreement for some time, and we must now negotiate (transition) them into a single collective agreement.  It is our intention to do so as quickly as possible. 

Our goal is, first and foremost, to ensure that no one loses pay or benefits that they currently enjoy, and to extend benefits that are part of our provincial agreement to everyone who will now be part of it.  The transition must be negotiated, however, but we will do our utmost to achieve the goal.  Over the next while, incoming groups will set up their local units, and select representatives to participate in the transition bargaining.  The process from here on in will be fairly complex, so I will not go into detail in this blog. 

This afternoon our senior labour relations staff and I met with EMS workers who have been CUPE elected representatives of the incoming groups.  The meeting was very positive – we discussed the process of merging the EMS workers into our union, and the many legitimate questions about how HSAA will deal with the many issues that arise out of the transition, and how current grievances will be dealt with.

On the grievance front, our staff have negotiated a time limit extension for all grievances to the end of June.  Between now and then, our staff and representatives of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) and the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) will transfer all files and exchange information to ensure that these grievances can be properly handed off to our staff.  They may be able to deal with some issues before the end of June, but the blanket extension ensures that no grievance is lost because of an expired time limit.

I invite the professionals who are coming into HSAA to visit our web site, where you will be able to download a membership application form.  We will be mailing membership packages to every employee affected (assuming that AHS has provided us contact information). Some of our the benefits that HSAA provides (over and above your collective agreements, are dependent on the date you joined, so going to the web may speed up the membership by eliminating one trip by mail.

I am confident that the members of HSAA will join me in ensuring that you are made to feel welcome in your new union, and look forward to meeting as many of you as possible in the near future. 

Wishing you a fine (if not sunny) weekend. 

Elisabeth