Alberta Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky announces an $8-million injection in health care to cut down surgical waiting lists. (CBC)Alberta said it will reduce surgery wait lists, starting with approval for 2,230 additional surgeries and non-surgical procedures between now and the end of March.

Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky and Alberta Health Services president Stephen Duckett made the announcement Tuesday at the University of Alberta Hospital.

"This is just the beginning of a much longer and larger longer-term plan over the next several months," Zwozdesky said.

Procedures will include urgent cancer surgery, orthopedic surgery (including hip and knee replacements), neurosurgery, heart surgery and cataract surgery.

In addition, 3,500 more MRI and CT scans will be added immediately.

"The new budget announced last week allows us to change the way we've been doing things," said Duckett. "Because, for example, we don't have to focus on the deficit repayment, we are now able to act immediately to ramp up [procedures]."

'Bold goal'

Alberta Health Services has set itself the "bold goal" of trying to increase the number of surgical procedures by 10 per cent over the year, Duckett said.

"We're doing this, in a sense 'blitz,' to start moving quickly," he said. "But what we've got to do is make sure we put in additional capacity so that we can actually make sure that we deal with the flow over time."

The initial 2,230 increase in surgeries and non-surgical procedures will not eliminate the wait list, Duckett said. It is expected to cost $8 million. Officials did not provide financial estimates for subsequent increases in surgeries.

"This is the news we'd all been hoping and waiting for," said Dr. Bill Johnston, co-site medical director at Edmonton's University Hospital, adding the wait list for procedures like hip and knee surgeries had grown significantly in recent months.

'People in agony'

"The list is now over six months and in some cases nine months, and that is too long when you see these people in agony. It's too long."

The number of surgeries would increase in April, May and June as more surgical capacity becomes available, including more operating room time and increased availability of surgeons and surgical teams.

AHS officials said they will compile wait time and wait list information that will be publicly reported annually.

"We are not spending monies we don't have," Zwozdesky said, referring to the five-year funding plan for Alberta Health Services. "We are spending monies that were in the Sustainability Fund."

Last week's provincial budget projected a record $4.7-billion deficit with cuts in many departments, while at the same time promising a 16.6 per cent increase in health-care spending.

'This government is responding to popular outrage, and that's a good thing.'—David Eggen, Friends of Medicare

The lobby group Friends of Medicare applauds the move, but David Eggen, the group's executive director, said it should have come sooner.

"This government is responding to popular outrage, and that's a good thing, a good step for democracy," Eggen said. "But it shouldn't have to be that level of protest that obliges a government to do the responsible thing."

The strategy does not address the chronic shortage of beds in Alberta, Eggen said, nor the fact so many Albertans can't find a family doctor.

Liberal health critic Kevin Taft said Tuesday's announcement continues what he believes is the government's move to more privately-delivered health care.

"I think the strategy here has been — to the extent that there's been one — has been to squeeze the public system to the breaking point and then open the door to private investors to pick up the pieces," Taft said.

"If you're sitting in pain because your hip replacement has been put off for the last year, then this is going to feel like relief and it will be relief. But it's lousy management, and in the long term it's going to give us, I believe, a worse system."