This past week a local woman fed up with a bureaucratic loophole took the time to fire off some emails to the people in charge of approving equipment purchases for hospitals. The issue was not the money as one might think, but getting Alberta Health Services (AHS) to sign off on a cardiac monitoring system for St. Therese Hospital in St. Paul. That the St. Paul and District Foundation raised the cash for the equipment is laudable. That AHS did not approve it immediately is deplorable.
However, since sending that email, the purchase has been fast-tracked and should be purchased soon. MLA Ray Danyluk said communication is the solution to preventing similar occurrences – he’s right. As the wheels started turning for the purchase relatively quickly after making contact with the right people, Gladys Boisvert deserves credit for bringing it to the attention of the people who can get that machine to St. Paul as soon as possible.
Another positive result from a disappointing incident, AHS plans to conduct an internal review and to make procedural changes. This is the long-term solution to the problem. If it has happened locally, it has likely happened somewhere else. Being a huge department with hundreds of hospitals to manage is no excuse in itself. All purchases with locally raised cash should be streamlined to meet the needs of local hospitals to avoid delays that could result in tragic consequences.
The initiative of one fed up foundation member got the ball rolling in a number of ways for local health needs with the fast-tracking of the request and a departmental review. While the short-term need can hopefully be fulfilled by the fast-tracking of the request, the long-term solution will depend on the results of the forthcoming procedural review, and whether the department is willing to make the changes necessary to ensure something similar never happens again.
