Jon Meddings

Dr. Raj Sherman Verified account @RajSherman · 7h

Premier @ABDanielleSmith, let's set the record straight.

As Chair of Health Quality Alberta, I warned you and @FreeAlbertaRob in February 2025 about cardiac arrests in ER waiting rooms and the dark days ahead.

I have the text messages.

We also developed a plan to reintroduce Triage Liaison Physicians (TLPs), a crisis protocol studied by University of Alberta physicians nearly 20 years ago.

Under Premier Stelmach, AHS & Covenant Health implemented TLPs without the Premier or Health Minister micromanaging the process.

The program helped identify and treat seriously ill patients earlier and reduced the number leaving without being seen. It saved lives and ER doctors stepped up to help.

Fast-forward to 2026:
1. No spare ER doctors. TLPs require exhausted physicians to volunteer for additional, high-risk shifts.

2. Pay roughly 40% below normal clinical earnings. More responsibility, greater risk, less pay. Disrespectful.

3. No TLP can function safely without dedicated nursing support and examination space. You cannot examine seriously ill patients in a waiting room.

Why is the Premier & Minister micromanaging a single ER position?

This belongs with AHS, Covenant Health, their hospital administrations and frontline emergency physicians, not politicians.

I supported you in 2023. I'm still a @Alberta_UCP member, but my loyalty is to patients, not politicians.

Blaming Dr. @PfParks for delays in implementing TLPs is inaccurate & misrepresents the real issues: staffing, compensation and infrastructure. Dr. Warren Thirsk was ER section President at the time, not Dr. Paul Parks.

And please stop celebrating crisis protocols as healthcare reform.

TLPs are an acknowledgement that our healthcare system remains in crisis, in the fourth year of your premiership.

The warnings came months before the December 2025 ER tragedies.

What did your government do? Reorganized healthcare and created more bureaucracy while patients continued to wait.

Albertans deserve accountability, not political spin.

You cannot triage your way out of a hospital bed shortage.
@JMeddings @BradenMannsYYC @NightShiftMD @raghu_venugopal @TheBreakdownAB @ryanjespersen @cspotweet @Albertadoctors @nenshi @albertaNDP @UnitedNurses

View quoted post on X

André Picard @picardonhealth · 17h

Is your doctor working too much? Ontario seems to think so. We need to know physicians’ billings are fair and justified, but without persecuting them, by @picardonhealth theglobeandmail.com/gift/0fc7a9238… via @GlobeDebate

View quoted post on X

Dr. Raj Sherman Verified account @RajSherman · 23h

It's along read...grab a coffee and if you agree, please retweet...your life depends on it.

Alberta's ER Crisis Is Far From Over. Stop Celebrating Crisis Protocols as Success. Premier

@ABDanielleSmith's government is celebrating the return of Triage Liaison Physicians (TLPs) as progress in fixing Alberta's overcrowded emergency departments.

Let's get something straight. TLPs are a CRISIS PROTOCOL, not healthcare reform.

Their return is an acknowledgement that our healthcare system is still in crisis.

I've practised emergency medicine in Alberta for 35 years. I've served as President of the AMA's Section of Emergency Medicine, an MLA, Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Health, and Chair of Health Quality Alberta (appointed by Premier Smith & I resigned).

I've seen this crisis from the front lines to the front benches. And my colleagues and I helped implement many of these same emergency measures nearly 20 years ago:
1. Overcapacity protocols: Moving admitted ER patients into hospital hallways.

2. 11 a.m. discharges: Getting patients home earlier so hospital beds could turn over.

3. Mandatory EMS offloading: Getting paramedics back on the road instead of waiting for hours outside overcrowded ERs.

University of Alberta emergency physicians (Drs. Rowe & Bullard/Holroyd) also developed and studied TLPs approximately 20 years ago to assess and treat patients stuck in waiting rooms.

These were emergency measures to reduce harm when the system couldn't cope. They were never meant to be permanent solutions. And here we are again.

I worked in an Edmonton ER this past weekend. Roughly 80% of our treatment spaces were occupied by sick patients already admitted to hospital but waiting for beds upstairs.

Even our old minor-treatment areas were plugged with admitted patients. Our ER crisis isn't caused by people coming in with minor illnesses. It's caused by sick patients who can't get out of the ER and into hospital beds.

Edmonton serves a growing, aging population and a massively underserved North. We simply don't have enough staffed hospital beds or the rehabilitation, subacute care, transitional care, supportive living and home-care, assisted living/long term care capacity to move patients through the system.

Patients can't leave hospital. Admitted patients can't leave the ER. Ambulances can't offload. Waiting rooms fill up. Care gets delayed. People suffer & tragically some die :(

And the government's answer is more episodic urgent care centres? How does that create a single hospital bed?

Worse, where will the doctors and nurses come from when our hospitals are already short-staffed?

Now we're asking exhausted ER physicians to volunteer for additional TLP shifts.

A 2026 Canadian study found 10% of surveyed ER physicians had left emergency medicine over five years, while another 48% had cut back their clinical hours.

We're asking fewer doctors to do more because we haven't fixed the system. We dealt with this under Premier @EdStelmachMLA who understood that healthcare needed predictable, adequate, multi-year funding, workforce retention, team-based family medicine, and serious investment in home care, rehabilitation, subacute, transitional care and assisted living and long term & palliative/hospice care.

The goal was to keep people healthy, keep seniors in their homes, and keep patients moving through hospitals.

TLPs can save lives. I support them.

But let's not confuse preventing harm with fixing the underlying problem.

Success isn't how many doctors sign up for crisis shifts.

Success is getting 90% of admitted ER patients into hospital beds within eight hours, getting ambulances back on the road, and providing Albertans safe, timely care.

Premier Smith, stop celebrating Band-Aids as healthcare reform.

You cannot triage your way out of a hospital bed shortage.

After 35 years in emergency medicine, I find it astonishing that we're still relying on the same crisis measures we introduced nearly two decades ago.

The return of crisis protocols isn't a victory. It's proof that the crisis is far from over.

BTW, Danielle, @FreeAlbertaRob and the wildrose caucus supported my amendment in 2010 to legislate admissions to hospitals within 8 hours (90%of the time)...did you forget???

Dr. Raj Sherman Emergency & Trauma Physician Former MLA & Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Health Former Chair, Health Quality Alberta

@UCPCaucus

@Alberta_UCP
@nenshi

@PfParks

@NightShiftMD

@raghu_venugopal

@TheSGEM

@jkenney

@RachelNotley

@JMeddings

@ryanjespersen

@cspotweet

@TheBreakdownAB

@AdrianaLaGrange

@AHS_media

@Albertadoctors

@UnitedNurses
@david_parker
@CAEP_Docs

View quoted post on X

Danielle Smith Verified account @ABDanielleSmith · 1d

More Albertans will soon have faster access to care closer to home.

Today Minister Adriana LaGrange @AdrianaLaGrange announced $39 million to plan and secure land for 9 new urgent care centres across Alberta. Once open, they will more than double our urgent care network from 6 to 15 centres and could divert up to 300,000 emergency visits every year.

The new centres are planned for west and south Edmonton, the Stony Plain and Spruce Grove area, east Calgary, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Cold Lake, Fort McMurray and Sylvan Lake.

That means shorter waits, less pressure on our emergency rooms and the right care in the right place when families need it most.

View quoted post on X