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EDMONTON – The Alberta NDP said Thursday that it’s obtained documents that show Alberta Health Services is planning to cut more than 177 full-time nursing jobs across the province.

The NDP explained the AHS documents dated Nov. 4 suggest most of the people affected would be Registered Nurses.

“We’ve obtained documents that demonstrate very clearly this government’s intention to cut nursing positions in hospitals right across this province,” said NDP health critic David Eggen.

“Through so-called ‘head count optimization,’ we will see, for example, a 37 per cent decrease in Registered Nurses at the Royal Alex Hospital, we will see a 15 per cent reduction in Registered Nurses (RNs) in the Foothills Hospital, 30 per cent reduction in Medicine Hat, and the list goes on.”

Eggen said the cuts would reduce the level of care people receive in the health system.

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Alberta Health Minister Fred Horne said the NDP’s claim of nursing job cuts is wrong.

He said Alberta Health Services is trying to hire more full-time nurses. But Horne said union contracts stipulate that a part-time nurse must be laid off if AHS wants to change a position to full time.

“AHS tells me that jobs will be available for all nurses currently in the system and as of today has 300 job postings for additional nurses,” Horne said.

Premier Alison Redford was also critical of the NDP’s claims.

“The way that that was presented, I think, was not accurate,” she said. “It’s certainly something that we expect the NDP to start to position on. You’ll know that the provincial government is going into negotiations with nurses fairly soon,” she added.

“We’re hiring more nurses; we want to hire more nurses.”

Redford added that the province wants to hire more full-time RNs and Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs) to work in family care clinics.

The premier said the health system is being restructured to run more effectively.

“It’s very clear that as we restructure health care, that we will ask people to take on new responsibilities. We know that we want to keep employing nurses on a full-time basis in the health care system, and that’s really important.”

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“Change is tough for people and I understand that, but I mean, we are committed to continuing to fund health care, to fund public health care, and to hire people in the health care system that are going to be able to provide services.”

Eggen believes the government is misleading the public.

“There’s a whole reorganization where they are not filling nursing positions, and back-filling with nursing aide positions,” he said.

“The PC government and Alberta Health Services needs to stop misleading Albertans about cuts to nursing positions across the province.”

The AHS documents mention the United Nurses of Alberta (UNA), the union that represents registered nurses.

Earlier this month the UNA accused the government agency of planning to eliminate hundreds of nursing jobs at 30 work sites across Alberta.

With files from The Canadian Press

Alberta Health Services: Nursing positions