Western Standard - October 13, 2021


Banned doctor calls out AHS for creating health crisis

Topics
bed shortage in rural hospitals
Mentioned
Daniel Nagese Yasser Chris
The battle continues between Without Papers Pizza and the city Family says Alberta government & NDP spreading ‘fake news’ that Nathanael’s death was from COVID

Episode Stats


Length

11 minutes

Words per minute

133.19

Word count

1,585

Sentence count

107

Harmful content

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Dr. Daniel Nagese talks about the lack of beds in Alberta's rural hospitals, why they're being cut, and why this is happening. He also talks about how the government is creating a shortage in rural Alberta.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Good evening everybody, it's Chris here from the Whistle Stop Cafe near Alberta.
00:00:13.000 Sorry we're a little bit late. We had to roll an airplane into a hangar and get everything all packed up.
00:00:21.000 The reason I wanted to do this livestream tonight is over the last little while I've told you guys and girls
00:00:26.000 that we want to do our best to bring you incredible information and we want to seek out the truth,
00:00:34.000 we want to seek out the people involved in the things that are going on right now
00:00:40.000 and we want to hear the information right from that person rather than relying on somebody else's podcast
00:00:47.000 or somebody else's webpage. So, what we did is we got in touch with Dr. Daniel Nagese.
00:00:54.000 And as most of you know, Dr. Nagese, he got himself in some hot water for doing what he knew was right,
00:01:05.000 which was treating his patients to the best of his ability and making sure that they got better.
00:01:16.000 But HS didn't like that. So, now just like me, although for different reasons, he's in hot water.
00:01:24.000 But, he did what he knows is right and we wanted to make sure that you had the opportunity to see that,
00:01:31.000 yes he does exist, yes this happened, and we're going to let him let you know why he did that and what it's all about.
00:01:41.000 Well, you know, I think people really have to look at the big picture, and we're talking about the really big picture.
00:01:49.000 Never before in western medical history have doctors been prevented and banned from prescribing a medication
00:02:00.000 for something the medication wasn't initially created to treat.
00:02:07.000 Whether it's minocycline to take care of strokes and reduce brain damage after strokes,
00:02:12.000 or aspirin after a heart attack. That was a discovery because aspirin was originally a painkiller.
00:02:20.000 But again, until this COVID-19 situation happened, doctors could prescribe any drug off-label.
00:02:31.000 And it was an agreement between the patient and the doctor that this is something you could try and see if it worked.
00:02:41.000 And as a patient, you're part of that decision-making process. In fact, as a patient, you're the most important part of that decision-making process.
00:02:50.000 But now, thanks to Alberta Health Services and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta,
00:02:59.000 you don't have that choice as a patient. You can't even have a discussion with your doctor where your doctor has the freedom to treat you as best he knows.
00:03:11.000 So, we just returned from a trip to rural Alberta. We won't say where. And it was to discuss with communities what they could do if they had problems that AHS was no longer serving their community.
00:03:31.000 And as someone who's worked in rural Alberta since 2015, I hear the same story over and over again.
00:03:41.000 I go to a community and they used to have a full-service hospital with a general surgeon. They used to deliver babies. They used to have plenty of beds.
00:03:53.000 And after decades of Alberta Health Services management, these formerly full-service hospitals all over Alberta, they lose their surgical operating room time.
00:04:10.000 Then they lose their obstetrics capabilities. And then they start losing beds. And even since 2015, since I started working in rural Alberta,
00:04:22.000 I've seen beds closed every year. I go to the same few places multiple times year after year after year in small places.
00:04:34.000 And I see places go from 25 beds down to 20 beds down to 15 beds. And in this pandemic, I've seen a few of the places I go to regularly cut down to 10 beds.
00:04:47.000 And this is all under AHS. We had a good discussion with communities about what they could do to try and stop the squeeze they're getting from AHS.
00:05:03.000 How the hospitals that used to be full hospitals are being reduced and cut back and no longer able to serve the communities.
00:05:15.000 So I have a question for you. In the newspaper and in the media, what you hear these days is, we have this severe bed shortage because of unvaccinated people. Is this bed shortage new? 0.90
00:05:33.000 I think seeing the escalation of beds cut in rural hospitals, that's the reason for the bed shortage.
00:05:44.000 Beds are cut. And if you cut enough beds in rural areas, then the patients eventually have to get sent to urban areas.
00:05:52.000 So the total number of beds, from my observations in rural Alberta, is the total number of beds is being cut every year.
00:06:03.000 Now are they being cut because we had too many or are we creating an inadequate situation in our hospitals?
00:06:08.000 You know, you could argue that by cutting beds in summer, because fewer people get sick in summer, you're creating a bed shortage in winter.
00:06:20.000 And some of these rural hospitals, they've been stable for decades.
00:06:25.000 And then in the past two decades under AHS management, what's an acceptable number of beds in the summer is inadequate to deal with regular flu seasons.
00:06:39.000 I get it. So here, here's something that really bothers me about what's going on with you and how you're being treated.
00:06:46.000 So as we've seen over the last couple of years, our premier, if any of the people in his organization, be it the MLAs, staffers, CA, presidents, whatever,
00:06:58.000 if they speak out, he drops the hammer on them and he makes them fall into line.
00:07:05.000 It doesn't matter if what they're doing is right or wrong.
00:07:07.000 Now what I'm seeing is doctors, and you're not the only one, there are others just like you, standing up and saying,
00:07:14.000 this is wrong, we need to do something different, and this is what we can do.
00:07:19.000 The same thing they're doing all over the world.
00:07:21.000 But here, AHS is actually gagging doctors and nurses, telling them that they can't speak out about these problems publicly,
00:07:30.000 and if they do, they're going to suspend them or take away their jobs.
00:07:35.000 So to me, to know that AHS has removed the relationship that I have with my doctor, and they've taken that relationship and placed it within the organization, that really bothers them.
00:07:51.000 People I've never met, they don't know my situation.
00:07:53.000 People I've never met, they don't know my situation.
00:07:54.000 Your choices as a patient are being removed by doctors you've never met, who are in administration.
00:08:03.000 And the big question that I have, and probably a lot of people are watching, why are they doing this?
00:08:10.000 And we don't know what they're thinking, we don't know why, but I think it's a question that the general public needs to start asking their elected representatives,
00:08:19.000 their doctors, anyone involved in healthcare, why is this happening?
00:08:24.000 And they need to be asking their bosses.
00:08:26.000 Because if we are in a situation where either people with people's egos or paychecks are getting in the way of proper patient care,
00:08:34.000 we've got a problem, and we need to deal with it.
00:08:37.000 So, on that note, I'd like to say thank you, and probably on behalf of 99% of the people who are watching,
00:08:44.000 for standing up and doing what you know is right.
00:08:47.000 It means a lot to us.
00:08:49.000 If there's men like you out there.
00:08:52.000 Thank you for being here and having a Facebook page where people tune in and getting the message out.
00:09:02.000 Because I'm not a media person, I don't have a Twitter.
00:09:05.000 And I open up my Facebook maybe once a month, so...
00:09:11.000 Well, we have a little bit of a Facebook following, so I'm sure there's going to be a lot of people that have seen what you said to me.
00:09:19.000 Um, has there been any questions that pop up for the doctor?
00:09:29.000 Most they can't hear, so turn it up.
00:09:31.000 So we'll just speak a little louder.
00:09:33.000 Um...
00:09:35.000 How can we get Fibromectin?
00:09:45.000 Ooh, dangerous question. That needs to be answered in probably a private chat.
00:09:51.000 I think people do need to network with their towns.
00:09:57.000 Because we saw a lot of that when we took this trip.
00:10:00.000 That when towns get together, neighbours network with neighbours.
00:10:05.000 People talk with each other. People can help each other.
00:10:09.000 And they work things out.
00:10:11.000 Another thing that helps is loud voices.
00:10:14.000 So, if you or someone that you know is sick, and you know that there's a treatment available that's accepted in other countries,
00:10:21.000 that isn't being allowed here.
00:10:23.000 Ask your doctor why.
00:10:25.000 Write complaints to AHS.
00:10:27.000 Use whatever, whatever channels you have within that organisation to voice your complaint and your concern.
00:10:35.000 Plug the complaint lines with...
00:10:37.000 Or AHS is not allowing my doctor to have a relationship with me.
00:10:42.000 I just found out that if you are at risk of having an allergic reaction or an adverse reaction to any vaccine because of prior history,
00:10:56.000 that's no longer a conversation between you and your own doctor.
00:11:00.000 That conversation has been taken by AHS as well.
00:11:03.000 And it's not right.
00:11:06.000 In Canada, we have the right to proper health care.
00:11:12.000 And a bureaucratic approach to somebody's health isn't right.
00:11:19.000 Wow.
00:11:20.000 Someone you've never met should not have the right to make decisions about your health.
00:11:27.000 I agree.
00:11:29.000 Why weren't the patients who were treated by Dr. Yasser speak out to me?
00:11:34.000 Well, two of them have recovered from COVID.
00:11:39.000 But again, I haven't been able to see them.
00:11:42.000 I know one patient.
00:11:44.000 She is quietly taking interviews with media.
00:11:48.000 But again, this is...
00:11:53.000 So on that...