Front-line health care workers worked incredibly hard over the past few years to serve and provide care to those in need of medical help. Our front-line workers have consistently gone above and beyond in their serve to Albertans, and yet, at no fault of our professionals, we have all still felt the inefficiency of our medical system.

I firmly believe that the inefficiencies that impact Albertan’s when seeking medical care aren’t caused by those on the frontlines, but rather those at the board room tables. I have been encouraged by the recent change from the UCP government in changing from a distanced AHS board to a single Administrator tasked with consulting those on the front-lines. We all know that those who are experiencing the problems are best situated to bring the solutions, and so we need to keep consulting our medical experts. Having a single point of contact will allow for a faster decision-making process and effectively bring change sooner to the looming wait times we currently experience.

I also know that many in our riding continue to struggle to find a family doctor, and we need to figure out solutions in recruiting and retaining doctors in our region.

I believe we need to do more to train internationally educated health care professionals who live in Alberta. Many are working in other professions because of the complications and difficulties of training international professionals to serve in our medical system.

In our riding of Grande Prairie, we are also uniquely positioned with the recent opening of the Grande Prairie Regional Hospital. With the partnership between GPRH and Northwestern Polytechnic providing a health education centre within the hospital, we have the unique opportunity to train and retain nurses graduating from the program. I believe that this partnership has the potential to expand its scope of training and diversify the medical professional training opportunities.