EDMONTON – Alberta Health Services is to hold a noon news conference to announce hospital bed closures and other cost-cutting measures.
Media reports say the plan involves closing 350 acute care beds, mainly in Edmonton and Calgary. An official with the Health Sciences Association of Alberta says the cuts are part of a three-year plan that is to start this fall.
The association says patients in those closed beds will be displaced into the community.
Word of the cuts follows a meeting with unions representing health workers and Alberta Health Services.
Stephen Duckett, president of Alberta Health Services, is to speak at the news conference in Edmonton which is being billed as the government’s latest initiative to improve patient care.
