Watch above: Laurel Gregory speaks to Health Minister Stephen Mandel about his agenda
EDMONTON — Alberta Health Minister Stephen Mandel officially has a seat in the legislature after being elected Edmonton-Whitemud MLA earlier this week.
Edmonton’s former mayor joined Laurel Gregory in the Global Edmonton studio Thursday. Here are the highlights:
A short retirement
In October 2013, after 12 years on city council – eight years as Edmonton’s mayor – Mandel stepped down as mayor with the intentions of retiring. It’s now just one year later and he is Alberta’s new Minister of Health.
What influenced the decision to move from retirement into provincial politics?
“It was a year of retirement. It really became the relationship I had developed with Premier Prentice over the time that he was running for leader. I got to know Jim and had tremendous respect for his ability and he asked me to join his team. I thought about it a quite a bit and I decided if I could be the health minister I would try.”
Why the Ministry of Health?
Mandel says he welcomes the challenge of trying to get the ministry to “operate in an effective way and create consensus.”
He says the challenge of dealing with a complex organization comes down to business.
“We have phenomenal doctors, phenomenal nurses, phenomenal people in the industry. We have to find ways to get it to function better, for people to play better together and to develop programs and ways of delivering the service in a more efficient, effective way.”
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Mandel versus Horne
Fred Horne, Alberta’s former health minister, had 25 years of experience as a health policy analyst. How does Mandel say he intends to accomplish what his more-experienced predecessor could not?
“I’ve got 35 years of business experience, and I think often times it’s not necessarily a health problem, it’s a business problem.”
Mandel says he was shocked to learn there are 745 people in acute care beds in Alberta that should be in another form of care facility.
“That’s like three hospitals,” he said. “So we came up with a program, work with Alberta Health Services to come up with a program to move people into long term care and other forms of supportive systems. And that will free up these acute care beds and then hopefully find balance.”
Mandel’s priority
Mandel says he will take a look at some of the structures of Alberta Health Services.
“See how we can set it up in a way that it can deliver the service a little bit better. We have certain priorities that the premier has set and we need to make sure those are front and centre.”
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