July 8, 2025
RED FM News Desk
Calgary, Alberta _ An Alberta emergency room doctor is publicly urging Premier Danielle Smith to spend time on shift with him to see the growing crisis in hospital emergency departments, where patients wait for hours in crowded hallways and medical staff are pushed to their limits.
Dr. Warren Thirsk, head of emergency medicine for the Alberta Medical Association (AMA), says doctors are experiencing “moral injury” as they watch helplessly while patients suffer due to severe system delays.
“It’s a kind of secondhand trauma—we’re helpers who can’t help. That’s why many of us are walking away,” Thirsk said in an interview.
He issued a personal challenge to Premier Smith: “Come sit in my waiting room for 13 hours and see what it’s like. Do you think if the premier had a medical emergency, she’d wait like that?”
Thirsk’s remarks follow the release of a new AMA survey that details patient experiences and frustrations in Alberta’s healthcare system. He currently works in the emergency department of the Royal Alexandra Hospital in downtown Edmonton.
Recalling a recent early-morning shift, Thirsk said he arrived at 6 a.m. to find the hallways already packed with patients who had arrived by ambulance the night before—some of whom had been waiting up to 14 hours for care.
He warned that unless politicians and policymakers witness the strain firsthand, they won’t truly understand the pressure facing both patients and frontline healthcare workers.
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