What Kind of Government Cuts Popsicles for Kids in Cancer Treatment?

How big a role did the colourful image of popsicles play in the Alberta government’s decision yesterday to drop the appalling Alberta Health Services policy of not providing frozen treats, juice boxes, water and snacks to kids recovering from cancer treatments?

Never mind the letterhead on the memo or the excuses we’re hearing now. It’s the Alberta government that owns the penny-wise, pound-foolish policy that under the circumstances can only be described as depraved.

As a cost-saving strategy, the measures outlined in nearly impenetrable bureaucratese in the memorandum from the senior operating officer responsible for nutrition, food, linen and environmental services at AHS were both foolish and heartless.

But the United Conservative Party Government had fired the AHS board and named former senior civil servant Andre Tremblay official administrator to replace it, vowing to transition the agency into “a hospital-based service provider” on Jan. 31. The memo was dated March 17.

The buck, as they say, has to stop somewhere and the calendar shows where.

Needless to say, in contrast with Alberta’s premier racing south to Florida at public expense to help raise money for a YouTube propaganda boiler room, the optics were unimaginably bad.

On Tuesday, Tremblay, who has recently been rebranded interim president and CEO of AHS, executed a screeching reversal and announced the changes outlined in the memo to take effect Tuesday had been dropped.

This happened after the issue embarrassed Health Minister Adriana LaGrange the day before, when it was raised by a reporter during a news conference on an unrelated health-care topic. And if that wasn’t enough to push the government to act, surely the harsh column by a usually understanding newspaper columnist with a big readership helped.

So the point of Tremblay’s statement Tuesday on the AHS website and social media appeared to be both to drop the hot potato ASAP and to blame AHS for the problem.

“In September 2024, Alberta Health Services approved changes to the way food is supplied in our emergency departments and other non-inpatient areas,” Tremblay’s statement began.

“After media reports surfaced, the Minister of Health raised concerns about the implementation of this policy and asked me to look into reports that food and drink may not have been made available to patients,” he continued. (I’ll bet she did!)

“The proposed policy was not meant to deprive patients of food. What was meant to change is how food is stored and delivered to patients in an effort to reduce waste that is occurring in our hospitals. I have reviewed this policy which was brought forward prior to my arrival at AHS and, after feedback from clinicians, have decided that AHS will not move forward with these changes.”

“We are concerned by the misinterpretation of this proposed policy and are looking into reports that food and drink may not have been available to patients.”

But that dog won’t hunt. It is not at all clear the policy was misinterpreted. “Clinics are encouraged to remind patients to bring snacks, meals and money for food purchases,” the March 17 memo said in part. “Departments must adhere to the established core lists and refrain from requesting additional items from any other source.”

Moreover, at the time it was issued, it was no longer really a proposed policy, although it hadn’t yet been implemented. The “reports,” by the sound of it, were based on real events that had already happened.

Did it occur to anyone that depriving patients, some of them small children, of food — and water — was exactly what such a memo would achieve? Of course that concern was raised by frontline staff and, presumably, ignored.

Sarah Hoffman, the Opposition NDP’s health critic and a former Alberta health minister, was right, if a little too alliterative to set the proper tone for a serious news release, when she observed that “the UCP government is more focused on cuts, chaos and corruption than providing care, comfort and compassion to kids with cancer.”

It’s unlikely the policy ever would have been changed if the parents of kids in care hadn’t raised a ruckus on social media.

“Don’t take away this small and sweet piece of joy to these unlucky kids enduring hell,” wrote Amanda Moppett-Beatch on Facebook below a photo of her son Easton, 11. “Find something else to pick on. Us oncology families are dealing with enough…”

But even then the policy might have passed unnoticed if it had remained, in the words of the March 17 memo, a matter of a restricted list of “established core items” and “essential nourishment items.”

I’ll bet it was the image of the popsicles, the benefits of which anyone who’s ever taken care of a sick kid understands, that shamed this usually shameless government to walk this back.