Badass Britt 

Anyone need to know how badly the Alberta Health Services is being dismantled by our government? Get this…

I’m trying to reschedule TWO MRI’s I have tomorrow due to battling an infection. It’s not safe for me, an immunocompromised patient, to go into a hospital setting at this time. I waited a year for this, so yeah, I’m unhappy. Not their problem, so I called to rebook:

Attempt 1) Phone line busy.
Attempt 2) Someone answers, takes all my info, tells me to wait for a booking clerk to be available to transfer my call. Wait 5 mins, get transferred to an inbox that says it doesn’t take messages and no one can take my call. Hangs up on me.
Attempt 3) I called the Edmonton central booking line for MRI this time instead of the individual hospital. It’s just a recorded message saying to call a different phone number because that one is no longer in service. I got the number of the OFFICIAL AHS WEBSITE FFS.
Attempt 4) line busy.
Update:
Attempt 5: “We couldn’t have done the exam at that time tomorrow evening anyway because it needs to be supervised by a radiologist at the time of the exam. “

… Rebooking IS IN JULY.

FFS. 🤦🏻
#Edmonton #Alberta #healthcare
#YEG

Mar 9 at 5:49pmWeb
Show threadStacey Cornelius 🇨🇦Mar 9
@britt Gong show. I hope you can get through soon. I'd suggest calling your provincial rep but... I dunno.
Show threadWulfy—Speaker to the machinesMar 9

@britt

I'd never thought I'd say this, but #Australian hybridised #free healthcare system works.
Diagnostic scans are done by private firms subsidised by taxpayer.
We had 13 years of conservative government trying to dismantle public healthcare, luckily, they were stopped.

Show threadmintiefresh 🇨🇦🇻🇳Mar 9

@britt I'm sorry you have to go through this. I am also in #YEG. I hate what this province has done to AHS and it's freaking awful. My wife went through cancer about 2 years ago and it was such a gongshow ... just so many little things ...

Thankfully she is healthy and clear right now. But yeah ... AHS has been dismantled so badly. I hope you are able to get your MRIs rebooked.

Show threadBadass Britt Mar 9

@mintiefresh I’m SO relieved your wife is doing ok now. Phew. Having to navigate this system and deal with a cancer scare is honestly my worst nightmare - as the biologics I take have a risk for causing cancers.

I’m sending all my best to you both and wishing smooth sailing in the system moving forward.

I did get rebooked… in July. It’s better than nothing I suppose. Thanks for your kindness.

Show threadmintiefresh 🇨🇦🇻🇳Mar 9

@britt Thanks Britt :)

Life after cancer can be very anxiety inducing. Basically every time there is a scan it's very terrifying. But I suppose you just try your best to deal with it and be kind to yourself when possible.

Glad to hear you got something booked!

Show threadCthulku has movedMar 9

@britt

Can confirm: booking was assumed to be essentially unskilled last year, despite needing to know enough about the exams being booked to ensure prep is communicated. All specialist booking clerks were moved into the hugely underresourced central booking call centre, and things have gone to shit since. No-shows have shot up, plenty don't do the appropriate prep, show up at odd times, and so on.

But maybe they saved a couple bucks?

Show threadBadass Britt Mar 9
@cthulku I sadly… am not even the slightest surprised. It’s a mess.
Show threadAmelia Bellamy-Royds Mar 9
@britt @cthulku Time & again, governments promise they'll save money by only cutting administrative jobs. not front-line health workers. Which just guarantees that all the front-line workers get swamped with administrative work and hampered by administrative mix-ups. 😖
Show threadCthulku has movedMar 9

@AmeliasBrain

1000% this. The stories I could tell.

@britt

Show threadBadass Britt Mar 9

@AmeliasBrain @cthulku what really throws me is that they think ‘saving money’ in healthcare is even the right mentality to begin with. We need to be investing, spending, improving, recruiting, researching… and most of all: healing.

The federal and provincial priorities are skewed, imho.

Show threadCthulku has movedMar 9

@britt

So very much this! Also: there is no such thing as unskilled work. The dedicated booking clerk we used to work with, who was with us from the beginning of the (PET) distribut department, knew so much from answering patient questions over the years that we hardly had to explain the test when patients arrived. Now, well, we're lucky if they show up to the right appointment at all.

@AmeliasBrain

Show threadBruce Heerssen Mar 10

@AmeliasBrain @britt @cthulku

It's very difficult to gain support for privatizing government services when the government services are popular and work well. So you've got to compromise them first.

Show threaddigitalart_jasonMar 9
@britt this is partially why I immigrated abroad.