Some non-union employees of Alberta Health Services asked to take out unpaid time due to ‘budgetary pressure’

According to a memorandum received by CBC News, Alberta Health Services is forcing some of its employees to extract two unpaid days before the end of March, as it is facing “budgetary pressure”.

A memorandum sent to the employees by Senior Vice President of Erin O’Neel, Senior Vice President Finance and Shared Services said that non-rescued relaxed employees (known as Nuees) will be affected, with the exception of employees in specific pay groups.

Memo said, “Please know that we discovered many options before taking this step, but that it is necessary to meet our financial commitments because we continue to face budgetary pressures.”

An AHS spokesperson confirmed that the “one-time remedy” was impressing some of its non-qualified employees, but did not say how many employees are mandatory to take 15.5 hours of unpaid leave.

,CBC News stated in an email that the AHS seeks capacity and cost savings to meet our financial commitments without affecting the patient’s care.

“This is a one-time remedy that affects some of our non-unhappy workforce. It does not affect frontline employees, and this remedy will not affect any health care services.”

Bland said that some posts have been exempted to ensure that earning below a certain limit is not affected.

“We believe that any financial impact is challenging,” Bland said.

“AHS has already implemented other cost-saving measures, such as vacancy and holiday management, and striving to limit our people wherever possible.”

The AHS did not answer the questions of CBC News as to what kind of posts have been included or how much money it will save.

Running budget pressure

Professor of Medicine and Health Economics at Calgary University, Dr. Braden Mans told CBC News that he was not surprised by the move.

“Many people may not know, but Alberta Health Services are not allowed to run the deficit,” he said.

Mains first saw the budget pressures when they served as an interim AHS vice president before leaving the post in 2023.

He said, “When I was in Alberta Health Services, the amount that was increasing the budget was well down as to what the population growth was,” he said.

Before the province’s health care restructuring, Nuees took about 10 percent of the AHS workforce (about 11,000 employees) according to the MANS. NUEE classification may include manager and senior leaders, he said.

He estimated that compulsory time AHS could save AHS between $ 8 million and $ 15 million.

He said, “He used to see in every field to identify savings before taking such steps.”

“This is a small amount. It will not make a big dent.”

However, Mains hopes that the affected employees are disappointed, the Alberta government has paid far more for other controversial efforts, including almost also. Dynalife to buy $ 100 million back after a Failed attempt to privatize lab services,

“This is probably a little felt,” he said.

Health system continues to be restructured

It comes at a time when the Alberta government continues to move forward with the restructuring of the health system.

Acute Care Alberta states CBC News that it does not affect employees who have already transferred new provincial health agencies from AHS to Alberta.

The disintegration of AHS means that the actual number of affected people is likely to be low, the man’s said.

“It is not a big cost savings in the big plan of things … but it will be seen talking to the price that the managers have provided to the system,” Manas said.

Meanwhile, AHS said that the affected employees would have input as to how their days are scheduled.