Alberta’s health minister says the province has “a bit of strain” in neonatal intensive care unit capacity but that there are beds available across the province.
Health Minister Adriana LaGrange made the comments Wednesday after Edmonton doctors released an open letter to her and the provincial health-care delivery agency raising concern vulnerable babies are at risk in units that have been too full and had staff stretched too thin.
The Edmonton Zone Medical Staff Association wrote in the letter that a safe capacity in a neonatal ward is 80 to 85 per cent to allow for emergency cases, but those units were at 95 to 102 per cent capacity about a third of the time between January and March.
LaGrange has said she only learned of the issues outlined in the letter Tuesday, but the association said briefing notes sent to Alberta Health in 2022 and 2023 sounding the alarm for urgently needed beds had “largely been ignored.”
“These babies have nowhere else to be cared for and we believe the situation has become so critical that deaths of infants may soon follow,” Dr. Manpreet Gill, president of the medical group, and Dr. Amber Reichert, a neonatologist and association member, wrote in the letter.
LaGrange said as of Wednesday morning, there were 48 neonatal intensive care beds available across the province, including 12 in Edmonton and 17 in Calgary.
Alberta Medical Association president Dr. Paul Parks said the letter is concerning, but capacity has been a long-standing issue that predates LaGrange’s time as health minister.
“There’s times where our capacity is stretched to 100 per cent, 105 per cent, throughout the acute care system,” he said.
“This has been brewing for a couple of years in regards to workforce.”
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