Alberta government mothballing south Edmonton hospital 'senseless': health advocates

Alberta's budget doesn't even come close to addressing residents' health-care needs now or in the future, workers and advocates said Friday. And nowhere is that more apparent than in the province's capital city, they say.

Alberta's budget doesn't even come close to addressing residents' health-care needs now or in the future, workers and advocates said Friday.

And nowhere is that more apparent than in the province's capital city, they say.

While the Alberta government in the 2024 budget tabled Thursday pledges an increase in provincial health-care funding, the 4.4-per-cent bump to $26.2 billion the system received is not nearly enough to address urgent needs in the system, Chris Galloway, the executive director of Friends in Medicare, said to media following the budget's introduction.

"We absolutely need to be investing in public services," he said Thursday at the Alberta legislature.

"We didn't see that investment today."

Finance Minister Nate Horner in his address to media before tabling the budget said his government "knows health care is the top priority of Albertans" and that it's steering funding "to force specialized areas to drive improvement and find new, better ways to meet the needs of each patient."

None of that funding is being directed at the construction of a long-planned new Edmonton hospital.