Smith Just Exploded Alberta Health Care. What Comes Next?

This isn’t just about Smith’s pre-premiership comments in which she, among other things, pitched the idea of contracting out the operation of hospitals to private bidders and suggested patients might pay out of pocket to see a doctor (ideas she subsequently disowned as premier).

This is about someone who has a record of attacking medical expertise where, as a radio talk-show host, she criticized pandemic restrictions and promoted quack treatments such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.

Ivermectin is an antiparasitic drug. After its discovery in 1975, its first uses were in veterinary medicine to prevent and treat heartworm and acariasis.

Hydroxychloroquine, sold under the brand name Plaquenil among others, is a medication used to prevent and treat malaria in areas where malaria remains sensitive to chloroquine. Other uses include treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and porphyria cutanea tarda.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved the use of either hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) or ivermectin for treating or preventing https://scdhec.gov/covid19/dangers-using-hydroxychloroquine-ivermectin-preventing-or-treating-covid-19 COVID-19 in humans.

During the 2022 United Conservative Party leadership race, Smith fired up support from her anti-mandate, socially conservative base by promising to wreak vengeance against Alberta Health Services for COVID restrictions. She also promised to amend the Alberta Human Rights Act to give official protection to the unvaccinated. On her first day as premier, Smith declared that the wilfully unvaccinated faced the most discrimination she had seen in her 50-year lifetime.

She dutifully fired the AHS board, got rid of Alberta’s chief medical officer, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, and began the process of undermining what she had called a “lawless” AHS.

This week, we saw just how AHS will be declawed. And how Smith will take more direct political control over health care in the province.

Nobody is saying the current system is perfect, and Albertans rightfully complain about long wait times in the emergency rooms, long wait times for surgery and long wait times to get a family doctor.

But critics say Smith’s upheaval of the system is only going to make things worse.

Steve’s note
It looks to me as if Resolution 3 get passed, quack-doctors can write articles and do interviews telling the public about the great successes they’ve had treating covid with hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. By the look of resolution 16, they’ll have the right to prescribe it to you for covid. |Read more https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2023/11/14/Smith-Exploded-Alberta-Health-Care/| thetyee.ca/Analysis/2023/11/14…

#abpoli #resolutions #covid #ivermectin #hydroxychloroquine #healthcare #AHS #politics