Cuts to the health-care system are unacceptable to most Albertans, a new poll commissioned by the CBC suggests.

Of 804 people from across Alberta contacted by telephone in the poll done by NRG Research Group, 61 per cent said it was unacceptable to make cuts to the health-care system.

As well, 70 per cent of respondents aren't confident the government can make cuts and retain quality in the system, Bruce Cameron of NRG Research Group said Tuesday.

Alberta Health Services announced in August it will close 250 beds at Alberta Hospital Edmonton. (CBC) Alberta Health Services announced in August that it will close 250 beds at Alberta Hospital Edmonton, the province's largest psychiatric hospital, and move patients to beds in community facilities.

Doreen Roberts of St Albert, northwest of Edmonton, is campaigning to keep those beds open. Roberts has a grown son with schizophrenia who has his own apartment and owns a seasonal business.

"During those times when there's no income, he makes choices like, okay, what can I afford and what can I not afford, and unfortunately he'll choose the medicine, because it is so expensive," Roberts said.

The medicine costs about $600 a month. Without the medicine, Roberts said her son crashes and ends up in hospital.

"A couple of the hospitals that we've been involved with … you're treated like a weirdo, you're not much more than a criminal."—Doreen Roberts, mother of a man with schizophrenia

She's among the Albertans who doesn't believe the government can make cuts to health care and retain quality.

"In the Alberta hospital, you get your treatment, you get your coaching, you get your counselling, you have recovery time and you're prepared to go back home," she said. "At a regular hospital … you go in, you're there to get well and to get out."

"A couple of the hospitals that we've been involved with … you're treated like a weirdo, you're not much more than a criminal," Roberts added.

Mistakes made in the 1990s

Dr. Alberto Choy, president of the medical staff association at Alberta Hospital Edmonton, doesn't want to revisit the mistakes made in the 1990s.

"There were massive bed closures, a promise to move resources to take care of people in the community where arguably they will do better … but that didn't materialize," Choy said.

Having mentally ill patients in the community without proper supports leads to all kinds of problems, including homelessness and crime, he said.

Patients will not simply be pushed out of Alberta Hospital, according to Stephen Duckett president and CEO of Alberta Health Services.

Stephen Duckett, president and CEO of Alberta Health Services, talks to reporters on Sept. 16. (CBC) "There'll be no patients moved from Alberta Hospital Edmonton until there's somewhere for them to go, that's a commitment I've made, it's a rock solid commitment," Duckett said.

"We can assure the patients there, we can assure their families that the life they will have after this will be better than the life they've got now," he said.

Still, Doreen Roberts isn't convinced, and she's worried about what will happen when Alberta Hospital stops taking patients like her son.

"Since my son became ill with this, all I've wanted is for him to stay alive and be safe and that he wants to stay alive," Roberts said. "So that is my biggest fear, that his own hope will diminish and that he'll give up."

Results from the poll, conducted in mid-September, are being released as part of series of stories on health care being done by the CBC. The poll is considered accurate within 3.5 percentage points, 95 per cent of the time.