Health critics blasted Dr. Raj Sherman for threatening to resign as Alberta’s parliamentary assistant for health years after emergency doctors first told the government people were dying and having heart attacks in hospital waiting rooms.
“It reads like some kind of poorly written soap opera,” said David Eggen, executive director of Friends of Medicare, who will be running for the NDP in the next provincial election. “Why does it take Raj Sherman two years to figure out he was just being used by this government? They wanted a smiling doctor as their frontman, but now it just turns into another health leadership car crash. That’s the last thing we need right now. We were hoping the government was getting their act together and obviously there’s some serious problems we’re not even hearing about.”
Sherman, who became a politician precisely over his concerns about emergency room crunches, sent an e-mail Wednesday to Premier Ed Stelmach and others, lambasting the government for not addressing the problems.
Sherman decided to continue as Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky’s parliamentary assistant after an afternoon meeting with the premier and his caucus, during which he discussed how his trust in them has become “severely tarnished.”
“Three weeks ago, I offered the current minister my resignation as the parliamentary assistant as I can no longer support the health-care decisions made by (Alberta Health Services) as well as some of those made by our government,” Sherman wrote in his e-mail, obtained by the Calgary Herald.
Not only does Sherman see the emergency crunch while working Sundays at the Northeast Community Health Centre, he has also been personally touched by the issue because of family illness.
“I’m sick and tired of throwing my father in the pickup truck every time he’s dying,” Sherman told the Journal in October. “My own father has had to go to the ER five times and almost died in the waiting room.”
Eggen said Sherman had no choice but to speak out.
A spokesman for Alberta Health Services said no one from the health authority will be commenting on the Sherman controversy. “I think he was feeling intense pressure from his professional colleagues to do something,” Eggen said. “He’s not just an MLA. He’s supposed to be the No. 2 elected official on the health file and we haven’t seen him anywhere in the last two years. I think he’s lost credibility, period, both with his caucus and with the public. We have implored him for more than two years now to take some leadership on this health-care file and he failed to do so.”
Eggen said the most honourable thing for Sherman to do is resign and immediately speak “with clarity” on the need for more health-care professionals and practical solutions to reduce the “potential catastrophic collapse” of emergency care, as recently described by his physician colleagues in emergency care.
“Now he comes out with what looks like throwing a grenade into his caucus and into the debate when what we need now, more than ever, is construction action on health care,” said Eggen, noting Sherman’s political maneuverings are sidetracking the debate and diluting the crisis in hospitals. “He’s having a conversion on the road to Damascus. That’s great, but it’s a bit late.”
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