Rebuild Our Healthcare

protect
rebuild
public
healthcare

Our system is in crisis

Our government is dismantling public healthcare – restructuring the system, gutting budgets, and prioritizing for-profit options that cost more and deliver less.

Record-high
wait times

Albertans are waiting longer for vital care, risking worsening conditions and delayed treatments.

Staffing
shortages

Government chaos and underfunding are driving healthcare professionals away, resulting in fewer of them available to provide care.

Reduced
ER services

Because of under funding and short staffing, ERs are experiencing reduced services, temporary closures and huge wait times.

Overcrowded
waiting rooms.

This is now the norm, creating unsafe and undignified treatment for patients and demoralizing staff. This is a policy failure, not an inevitability.

Family
doctor shortage

Hundreds of thousands are without a family doctor. Preventive care is collapsing, and manageable conditions are turning into emergencies.

Facility
closures

Hospital and clinic closures force families to drive for hours or go without care—worsening inequities, especially in rural and Indigenous communities.

Pushing
privatization

The government is allowing for-profit health care to grow, forcing patients to pay out-of-pocket while eroding universal healthcare access.

Mental
health gaps

Chronic underfunding has left mental health supports threadbare. People are falling through the cracks and turning up in ERs that can’t keep up.

It's the age old strategy: create chaos, break things, and then push privatization as the solution. But the results are in on Smith's privatization expermients. The 2024 budget revealed that the failed privatization of our lab services cost Albertans at least $97 million, without delivering the promised cost savings or services needed.

Albertans value our public healthcare and have invested in it for generations. Watching it be undermined is insulting, expensive, and dangerous.

Staffing Shortages

"I went to the hospital with severe pain, but staffing shortages meant endless waiting. Nurses were exhausted, doctors overwhelmed. I felt forgotten, and worried my condition would worsen before help arrived."

Caleb Smith

Calgary

Due to chronic underfunding, Alberta’s healthcare workers are leaving the system in alarming numbers.

The 2024 budget revealed that the failed privatization of our lab services cost Albertans at least $97 million, without delivering the promised cost savings or services needed.

Following privatization, Alberta saw significant delays and disruptions to our lab services, and the increased use of private, for-profit surgical centres has meant we’ve done fewer surgeries in our hospitals this year than last year.

Government funding cuts and a push toward privatization are delaying surgeries and leaving Albertans waiting longer for essential procedures.

Stop the chaos

Sweeping restructuring from this government causes chaos and erodes trust in public care. It's time for it to end and to stabilize healthcare.

Stabilize now

Surge funding to reopen ER hours, expand inpatient beds, and clear surgical backlogs in public hospitals.

Spend public dollars on public care

End un-Canadian subsidies to for‑profit operators and re-invest in hospitals, community clinics, and public labs.

Restore affordability

Ban creeping extra billing and private fees that undermine universality and block people from care.

Support rural communities

Reopen and stabilize rural ERs, expand urgent care, and grow home and continuing care to free up hospital beds.

Deliver mental health care

We can avoid ER backlogs by investing in evidence-based mental health and addiction services across the province.

Recruit and retain

Ensure adequate staffing and access by implementing a province‑wide workforce plan, including a focus on rural access.

Respect the experts

Re-engage healthcare workers by listening to their expertise about healthcare policy and fosering a stable working environment.

Email your MLA

When leaders here from the people who vote for them, they listen. Join thousands who already sent their MLAs a message by sending your concerns today.

Share your Story

Have you had a bad experience with Alberta’s health care system? Help us shine a light on the real impacts these cuts have on every day people by sharing your story.

Volunteer

Volunteers are the heart of Friends of Medicare — neighbours, workers, and community members coming together to stand up for public healthcare. Whether you can lend a hand at a rally, help with outreach, or share your skills behind the scenes, your contribution matters. This movement is built by everyday people who care — and together, we’re fighting to keep healthcare public, accessible, and strong for everyone.

Find a Local Chapter

Our regional chapters are the backbone of this movement. By organizing locally, these chapters make it possible for people across Alberta to raise their voices and act together in defence of public healthcare. There’s a chapter close by where you can plug in, contribute, and take part in shaping the future of health policy.

Explore your local chapter. Reach out, learn how you can get involved, and help build a stronger, people-powered defence for public healthcare—wherever you are in Alberta.

Join Friends of Medicare

When you become a member of Friends of Medicare, you’re stepping into a movement. Your membership gives you a stake and a voice in shaping the defence and growth of public healthcare in Alberta. It means you join a community of people who believe that medical care should be guided by need, not profit.

Join thousands of Albertans demanding accountability, access, and timely treatment—no fees, no two-tier shortcuts.

ER patients left before completing treatment in 2024.

Alberta's Healthcare Systemis Being Intetionally Dismantled

Record-highwait times

Staffing shortages

Reduced ER services

Overcrowdedwaiting rooms.

Family doctor shortage

Facility closures

Pushingprivatization

Mental health gaps

Real Voices, Real Struggles, Shared Stories

Staffing Shortages

Caleb Smith

Reduced ER Services

Jessica Gibbins

Family Doctor Shortage

Colin Roberts

The evidence is clear. Privatization is not the answer. Here's the proof.

Driving Away Professionals

Nurses reported burnout

Doctors plan to leave

FailedExperiments

ServiceDelays

DividedResources

Patients received timely surgery

It's not too late:We can fix this crisis.

Much of our challenges in healthcare can be solved by spending our public dollars on a public system.