Dr.Lynora Saxinger

PSA
In Alberta you now need to sign up to get public health advisories for your area. It is not clear to me if there will be regular media-social media public health announcements outside this process.
See link:
www.alberta.ca/publi...

Bonus Comment: Don't get hung up on math. Big picture example: government has not built a hospital in Edmonton since 1988, our population has more than doubled, and we are a referral centre. This has been predictable, predicted, and not dealt with for a looooong time.

Bonus Math: Canada- avg 2.5 beds/1000, OECD/international avg 3.5/1000, Edm/Calgary 1.5 beds/1000: 3800 beds to get to Can avg, 7,295 to OECD average, optimal community hospital size is 300-400 beds.
Each hospital: 2500-3200 people: nurses, doctors, plus other HCW/staff.

6/6 ✅ The Fix:
1️⃣ Acknowledge we need to catch up, then match population growth
2️⃣ Long-Term Care patients need LTC beds
3️⃣ Recognize the real costs of running at >100%
HCW burning out to prevent terribly substandard care is not a long-term plan.

6/6 Problem: Deliberate downsizing ("efficiency") since the 1980s. Now Canada runs the lowest "curative" beds in the G7, and Calgary and Edmonton (1.4 beds/1000) sit near India and Bolivia- we could manage it because of good primary care, but we're underresourcing that too.

5/6 🏆 The Paradox: Despite this, Albertans have better cancer survival rates than the UK or Germany. My colleagues are putting it all out, all the time for our patients, with ZERO surge capacity. We have 102-120% occupancy daily. The goal for function and cost savings is 85%.

4/6 🛑 The "Exit" Block: Between 20% and 37% of our hospital beds are filled with patients waiting for long-term care (ALC). When the "exit" is blocked, the Emergency Room becomes a parking lot. "Hallway medicine" is terrible for patients and heartbreaking for healthcare workers.

3/6 📉 The Bed Gap: In 1980, Canada had 6.75 beds per 1,000 people. Today, Alberta’s big cities are down to ~1.4. That’s the same ratio as India or Syria. Meanwhile, Germany sits at 7.8. We are forced to run "lean" to the point of breaking.

A voice from the trenches of acute care in Alberta: Part 1 I am (ahem) pretty old and have over 2 decades of experience working in hospital-based Infectious Diseases- at the end of the last century…

2/6 If you want ALL the gory details I have them written down here, btw - work in progress: medium.com/@Antibiot...).

Basically, decades-long policy of "efficiency" has left no surge capacity: our system works brilliantly on a Tuesday in May, but breaks every December.

TL;DR: Alberta would need 11 hospitals in Edmonton and Calgary to be resourced to the Canadian average.
1/6 🏥 Why is Alberta’s healthcare system under such strain? It’s not "management"—it’s a numbers problem 40 years in the making. Let’s look at the data. 🧵 #AbLeg #CdnHealth

This should be interesting! An example of outside-the-box community outreach: I've never been in a panel that chatted through and debated vaccine controversies over a beer before!

This Friday - still some tickets available.

Edmontonians, visitors, U of A peeps- drop by Univ of AB Hospital Snell Hall for the Department of Medicine Community Health Fair anytime from 10:30 till 2:30 (the last session starts at 2) - with lunch provided as long as it lasts- you’ll be fed, entertained and educated!

By the way - labour negotiations have nothing to do with whether legislature is in or not.
So discussions COULD start tomorrow if the premier allowed them to.
4/4

It really felt like everyone was willing to keep showing up for as long as it takes. Hopefully once our democratically elected government gets the ample feedback that is rolling in it won’t be long…

3/4

Civilized and organized, citizens of all ages showed up to show we believe teachers and students deserve reasonable teaching and learning conditions.
2/4

Personal reflection: when it feels like there’s a LOT of concerning things going on, it was therapeutic to join a vast crowd of Albertans at the Legislature (so many kids!) to support our teachers and public education.
1/4

Honestly if in years past you told me that in 2025 we’d be getting measles exposures notifications on the regular I’d not have believed you. U of A notification.

(Sigh. To those who believe I am evil for promoting vaccination - I’m sorry you’ve been sucked into that unfortunate worldview, but I am sharing a personal + professional, science based interpretation and am being civil about it.
Abuse and threats say more about you than me.
6/6

5. All to say people should remember vaccination updates and prioritize their health this fall.
Life is busy and stressful enough without getting sick, caring for sick family members, rampant illness and abseentism at work/school, and wayyy overfull hospitals.
5/6

4. Millions of lives saved by vaccines…but a time of great societal stress also amplified outrageous disinformation from grifters and conspiracists, in spite of excellent safety data (there is no doubt vaccine is better than COVID infection.) pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...
4/6

3. COVID can be severe directly AND, like influenza, is associated with higher rates of major cardiovascular events (heart attack, stroke) in younger people too. Vaccines make a big difference in reducing risk of illness, death and community impact.
share.google/pvqLKjf...
3/6

2. Access with be more complex- not in pharmacies. Pre sign up period ends before they are available I think?
(If in doubt about coverage conditions and affotdability I’d sign up anyway. )
bookvaccine.alberta....

Immunologic conditions for eligibility include:
2/6

1.
In case you are in Alberta and missed the details, COVID fall vaccination eligibility in Alberta is restricted vs other provinces. One key difference is not covering based on age >65. Congregate care, medical and immunologic eligibility criteria. Medical:
1/6

I imagine many know this already but holy heck, what a massive Microsoft SharePoint security breach - with no patch yet.
Just in case- an FYI.
Check w/ your IT folk if it affects you.

In the wake of RFK Jr.’s ACIP shake-up, the medical community is taking matters into its own hands.

Dr. Michael Osterholm’s new Vaccine Integrity Project at CIDRAP aims to fill the void with science-based, nonpartisan guidance. #VaccineIntegrity #PublicHealth

The #ACIP meeting can only be described as the battle between science and anti-science. Greatest respect to the CDC scientists who are presenting the data in the face of a torrent of outright disinformation from several new members of ACIP who clearly have an antivaxx anti science agenda.

Why it matters: ACIP votes are legally binding for Medicaid and Medicare. If this new ACIP says no to a vaccine, millions could lose access. 3/

Here’s Your Cheat Sheet for Vaccine Recommendations Backed by Science These graphics will guide you through science-based vaccine guidelines for children and adults

PLEASE SHARE 🧪‼️

Vaccination schedules on the CDC website have already started changing under RFK Jr.

Scientific American has published a guide to the EVIDENCE-BASED vaccine recommendations in place BEFORE ACIP members were removed by the administration.

www.scientificamerican.com/article/see-...

Secretary Kennedy replaced CDC’s vaccine advisors based on false claims of conflicts of interest, and yet one of his new ACIP appointees reported more conflicts than all the 17 fired members combined. Striking.

Yeah, raw milk remains bad for you. Clear risk and no proven benefit. (Imaging licking a cows udder- and all of the manure win the environment. Those are the bacteria you are getting exposed to.)
doh.wa.gov/you-and-y....