It was last year that the Stephen Duckett controversy had resulted in the Alberta Health Services suffering a lot of negative publicity. However, the current year has witnessed some positive changes as the AHS has announced that it has made significant improvements in reducing emergency room wait times.

According to data released by the AHS on Monday, it was reported that it has been able to open 239 of the 360 beds that had been promised for Edmonton and Calgary. The remaining 121 beds will start functioning by the end of March.

A majority of beds have been opened up for providing transitional care to patients moving to beds meant for long term treatment. The shifting of patients to transitional beds will help in relieving the pressure of ERs and acute care wards that have suffered because of a lack of transitional facilities for patients who have to be shifted for long-term care.

Talking about the success that the latest initiative has been, the Medical Director for AHS in Edmonton, Dr. Owen Heisler, said that medical professionals in the province had already started to inform about improved waiting times and smoother work.

In order to improve waiting times, the provincial government had hired the services of 50 new staff members for taking care of the increased workload because of the introduction of new beds.