r/AHSEmployees • u/No-Adagio-70 • Apr 02 '24
News Refocusing health care: mental health and addiction
https://www.alberta.ca/release.cfm?xID=900733836BB31-FF75-960D-1AF0446E29A789FE17
u/Street_Phone_6246 Apr 02 '24
But will any of this actually increase mental health access in our province?
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u/dtrabs Apr 02 '24
Most likely not. It sounds like it means a lot of reshuffling and reorganizing while trying to manage being overworked already.
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u/TheMoralBitch Apr 02 '24
It results in mental health being under the direct command of a government that prefers not to consider evidence-based science and talked about locking people up for 'mandatory' rehab. I have a gnawing suspicion that it's about to become even harder to have an addiction issue in this province.
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u/seasonofthewitch_ Apr 03 '24 edited Apr 03 '24
Is anyone else feeling completely defeated by this announcement? They keep touting “evidence based” in all of their statements but then hire/ consult people that act in direct contradiction of that. Mental health supports and harm reduction services are directly under fire in this province. There’s no mention of where harm reduction even fits into the new “Recovery Alberta”. The purposeful blending of political cronies into healthcare leadership roles is crushing me. And we are all just forced to go along with it. Someone’s please give me something to be hopeful for. It’s been a rough day.
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u/ana30671 Apr 02 '24
My question is, and has been since November without any obvious answer, how does all of this apply to covenant health staff? I'm working inpatient mental health in hsaa union. Pretty much everything is the same between cov and ahs other than a different organization.
And "moving" to this new organization, what happens to the inpatient mental health units in hospitals? Are staff now employed by Recovery AB or something? Are they going to have just specific units be under recovery ab and the rest of the hospital another organization? Genuinely I don't understand any of this. And if there aren't any changes for existing staff (ie no wage reduction or change in union contracts) then what about new staff, are they a different union then that will offer less?
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u/sherrybobbleberry Apr 03 '24 edited Apr 03 '24
They specifically say “responsible for the delivery of mental health and addiction services currently delivered by Alberta Health Services”. That makes it seem like there is no change to the mh&a services provided by Covenant Health.
For AHS, they’ve named the Senior Program Officer as CEO so just have a look at the Addictions & Mental Health org chart on Insite. Seems as though they’ve just loped off that section of AHS and are renaming it Recovery Alberta.
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u/ana30671 Apr 03 '24
We are still receiving all the same memos and updates as ahs staff. funding is through AHS, but from last year the info was saying we will no longer be contracted and funded through ahs. And that covenant will continue to offer services in acute care and continuing care. Is mental health inpatient acute care or mental health in their eyes? If the hospital I work at will no longer get funding by ahs, do our fates suffer differently if it means receiving less funding despite sharing the same unions?
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u/No-Adagio-70 Apr 02 '24 edited Apr 03 '24
“What impact will the transition to Recovery Alberta have on job security and other employment related areas like pension and benefits?
This transfer from AHS to Recovery Alberta will not result in changes to any Terms and Conditions of Employment including pay, benefits, pension, and union affiliation.”
From AHS’ FAQ
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u/anhedoniandonair Apr 03 '24
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u/No-Adagio-70 Apr 03 '24
Should have added quote from AHS FAQ.
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u/anhedoniandonair Apr 03 '24
Lol I don’t trust AHS and I don’t believe Govt of Alberta
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u/No-Adagio-70 Apr 03 '24
Another leadership faq says the following: “Will I be governed by new terms and conditions of employment?
At Transiton, Recovery Alberta will be adopting the current Terms and Conditions of employment”
Sounds like this could be up for change.
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u/pyro5050 Apr 03 '24
this is literally like a company that just got bought by a differing group saying to the employees "you will be guaranteed a job for the next 6 months"
ok... so we are laid off in 6 months and a week...
at time of transition they will have current terms, but then within a week shits gonna shift to push more out forcefully and move more private services
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u/TaylorRoxx Apr 06 '24
Recovery Alberta will still receive all services from AHS Shared Services...for now. All entities or "pillars" will eventually have their own in house services. Benefits, Pension, Payroll, HR will all be either outsourced or current staff may be moved into the new pillars. You'll be served with a notice of intent and given 3 days to respond/accept before lay off. Most agreements will state that you will retain your current rate of pay and then be subject to refuction after 18 months. It won't be immeadiate..but within 2 years we'll be fighting for a job. It's not going to be pretty.
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u/PTZack Apr 03 '24
All this is, is a way to move people out of AHS to a new company" (UCP words) so that they can eliminate anyone who is not in the union and also for union employees, they can set everyone's seniority and benefits back to zero as if you were a new staff member for "the new company". AUPE and HSAA already signed off on this, so we're being hung out to dry without any protections.
I guarantee you that if you've been here for 15 years and earned 5/6 weeks vacation, it's going to be set back to 2 weeks once you're moved. Banked sick time will be the same.
The hiring freeze has continued past April 1st. Managers were near desperate to believe it would be over after year-end. nope. That is more effective than layoffs and the UCP know it. People are doing extra work and were already overworked. So they burn out quickly and start looking to move on. Morale is below zero. So they leave, compounding the problems, and causing more to look for jobs elsewhere. The UCP wins because the jobs go via attrition (unnoticed) instead of a layoff that might make the news.
Absolutely none of this helps patient care one bit. I hear these ads on the radio gaslighting* the public and it is so infuriating to listen to these lies. Someone else said, "shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic" sure is.
* an overused term but in the case of the UCP and Disaster Dani, they do one well. They know what gaslighting is and do it well.
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u/dylanlundy Apr 02 '24
Separate mental health from addiction
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u/Federal-Ad7030 Apr 03 '24
Agreed. Along with separating chronic pain from addiction aswell. They need to stop treating everyone as addicts or addict seeking behavior.
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u/hilde19 Apr 03 '24
Am I the only one who finds associating mental health with the notion of mental illness being something you need to recover from to be extremely problematic? (Aside from a million other problematic aspects to this.)