New agency, new CEO: Interview with Kerry Bales of Recovery Alberta

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Almost 10,000 Alberta Health Services employees became Recovery Alberta employees on Labor Day.

The new agency, officially announced Monday, has a new CEO from the AHS ranks.

Kerry Bales leads the first of four “pillar” organizations carved out of AHS in a process that began nearly a year ago, bolstered by the new Provincial Health Organizations Act.

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As executive director of mental health and addictions programs and Correctional Services and AHS, Bales has seen a lot of water under the health care bridge, serving as the chief regional officer for the Central Zone. for AHS from 2009 to 2019, and the David Thompson Health Region in its various incarnations back to 1996 before that.

Agency by other names

In an interview Tuesday, the new CEO acknowledged that there has been a conversation about the use of the word “recovery” as an umbrella term for mental health and addiction.

“I think it’s often a little confusing, and people think of it generally in terms of recovery,” Bales said, adding that “recovery” has been used in both addiction and mental health. .

In mental health, “healing” does not mean to suggest that there are no conditions that cannot be treated traditionally.

“The concept of recovery is very much about validating and supporting individuals, so they can realize their highest functioning and health,” he said.

Dr. Luanne Metz is the Alberta NDP’s health critic. Separating mental health from physical health goes back in time, he said.

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“UCP moves us away from an integrated model of health by treating mental health as a separate condition.

“People don’t come with mental or physical health problems. They are completely interconnected. This will destroy the ability of Albertans to get the health care they need,” said the Calgary MLA. – Varsity.

So why lump mental health and addiction into the same service and facility?

“I think there’s some overlap,” Bales said.

“When you work with people who need mental health or addiction support, you’re often looking at people who are very similar or very similar,” she said.

Recovery Alberta allows for planning where similar things can happen, he said.

One pillar up, three more to go

With the UCP government disbanding his former bailiwick, Alberta Health Services, maintaining service integration is important, Bales said.

“Even before the change, the need to ensure that there are processes and procedures in place for integration has been a priority within Alberta Health Services, even as a single organization,” he said. like that.

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“People may get care through the continuing care system, through the mental health and addictions system, through Correctional Services, through inpatients, through acute care hospitals. That’s not- has not changed, and the need to continue to ensure that there are methods of integration that remain the same,” he said, pointing to areas such as clinical documentation systems among the supports of shared service for business and medical services.

With Recovery Alberta established as its provincial health agency, close collaboration with the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions should help design solutions to service gaps and future needs of Albertans, he said.

“It allows us to focus on that piece in particular, from a service design and equipment design lens.”

Critical reception

The Official Opposition criticizes the separation of AHS and the emergence of Recovery Alberta as part of “costly chaos and uncertainty.”

Janet Eremenko, the Alberta NDP’s analyst for mental health and addictions, cited problems with former health workers who worked at AHS one day and Recovery Alberta the next, “who did “doing everything in their power to maintain discipline and integrity at work, a government that was clearly underestimating the complexity of this work.”

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The MLA for Calgary-Currie said that the UCP government’s decision to dismantle the system, rather than improve it, had caused “huge costs and resulted in understaffing, and pressure on workers, patients and their families.”

“All signs indicate that the relationship between Recovery Alberta and, say, acute care, will worsen rather than improve. The need for patient advocacy and management will become more difficult, not easier,” the said Eremenko.

“More importantly, the influence of private operators, sometimes for profit, often from outside the province is greater than before. The provision of services, operations, monitoring and evaluation, ‘ and now the training of recovery coaches to be employed by Recovery Alberta takes place in an open, standard or external manner.

Problems and priorities

Although he said there are no new priorities related to reform, Bales said it is time to reduce slavery.

“I would say right now we need to continue to have a lot of effort and investment in services to deal with other issues of addiction and the opioid crisis. We’ve seen some recent success as the numbers have gone up. down in the last few months, but we want to make sure that we continue to be vigilant about that work,” he said.

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Bales pointed to “huge” gaps to be filled for children and young people, “also with the consequences of this epidemic, but also with changing and very stressful times,” he said.

Now it’s keeping up with Alberta’s recent rapid population growth — a challenge for organizations across the board at a time when the province is growing in population in Red Deer along with Fort McMurray every year. .

“To ensure that people get services according to that growth. Total access to services is probably the biggest priority,” he said.

jcarmichael@postmedia.com

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