News Online: MLA to present evidence backing claims of government cover up

Published online at GlobalTVEdmonton.com on March 7, 2011.


Linda Hoang, Global News: Monday, March 7, 2011

MLA to present evidence backing claims of government cover up

Independent MLA Raj Sherman said Monday morning he will table evidence in the legislature that will back up his claims of a government cover up in the health care system.

Sherman alleges 250 Albertans died waiting for surgery and that the province paid millions to keep it quiet.

Addressing the media Monday morning, Sherman began by reading an e-mail from someone he says lost a husband waiting for lung surgery.

“My husband died of lung cancer Sept. 30, 2005. From the time he was diagnosed tot he time he first saw the surgeon, which was months, the cancer had spread too far,” Sherman read aloud.

“The surgeon was so upset that when he got his tests back, he threw the report on the exmination table and said, ‘what am I supposed to do now?'”

“This is the level of frustration our doctors feel, say nothing of heartbreaking pain the patients and families feel,” the woman wrote in the e-mail. “To have to bury a person that you know could have lived is a double heartbreak. It makes you want to leave the place we were born and raised and move to a place where the welfare of the people comes first.”

Sherman says the e-mail is one of hundreds more his office has received.

He also appeared Monday with a box of documents, documents he says will show 322 cases in which health care in the province has been compromised.

Along with tabling evidence, Sherman said he will ask the premier during question period to launch a formal inquiry into the health care system.

“Today I am asking the government what I’ve asked from day one. Albertans need a full and credible public investigation which restores the public’s confident in our health care system.”

Last week Sherman raised allegations that the province paid “millions” in hush money to silence doctors who complained hundreds of Albertans died while on surgical wait lists.

Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky has called on the independent to show proof of his allegations.

With files from Vassy Kapelos

Click here to read the article on the Global Edmonton website.

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