Health Minister Jason Copping. (Government of Alberta)

By David Opinko/With files from Canadian Press

BACKLOG SETTLED AT 81,600

Alberta says surgery backlog has stabilized

Dec 9, 2021 | 5:59 PM

Alberta’s health minister says the province’s backlog of surgeries has stabilized and the government will focus on reducing it over the coming months.

Jason Copping says the waitlist stood at 68,000 cases before the pandemic began and has been rising and falling as waves of COVID-19 have swept through.

He reports the backlog has settled at 81,600, and he will work with Alberta Health Services to shave that figure down to the original 68,000 by the middle of next year.

Premier Jason Kenney’s United Conservative government has been sharply criticized for easing public health restrictions in the summer just as the Delta variant ramped up.

By September, hospitals had been pushed to the brink by soaring caseloads.

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“Jason Kenney stood in the legislature on Monday and promised that Albertans would see a plan to address this by the end of the week,” says Alberta NDP Health Critic David Shepherd. “Only three days later, the health minister told Albertans they’ll have to wait until the new year. This is unacceptable. It’s more evidence that Albertans cannot trust the UCP.“

That forced AHS to redeploy medical staff to deal with the health crisis, resulting in thousands of scheduled surgeries being cancelled.