Article content

Alberta Health Minister Tyler Shandro had the opportunity on Friday to slather some soothing balm on the festering wounds he created with the province’s doctors and bandage them up.

Instead, while he may have re-set some broken policy bones, he did not have a grace-filled bedside manner in his delivery.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Corbella: Shandro fixes mess he created but doctors still lack trust in UCP Back to video

It’s true that Shandro did walk back virtually every negative policy he implemented with regard to rural physicians and actually improved matters for them, spending more money to retain rural physicians.

But, instead of sounding conciliatory, Shandro laid the blame of all misunderstandings and bad blood between the Alberta government and provincial doctors at the feet of the Alberta Medical Association, which is the sole negotiating body for Alberta’s more than 10,000 physicians.

With a host of rural MLAs present at the news conference, Shandro said that his “rural caucus colleagues have been meeting and listening to their constituents over the last few months.