Strengthening After-Hours Care in Alberta

Female healthcare professional in blue scrubs and face mask wearing blue gloves in a hospital setting with medical equipment and green curtain background.

Hospitals never close and most of the week (nights, weekends, and holidays) fall outside “regular” working hours. 

There are fewer physicians and many pressures mean they may not be able or willing to work nights. ERs overflow. Wait times grow. Rural coverage collapses. And Alberta’s outdated payment model makes it worse, offering little support for overnight or community-based care.

Here’s the fix. Recognize physicians for providing after-hours care or that are available to return to hospital to provide services. For example, the Physician On Call Program (POCP) is meant to ensure doctors are available 24/7 — but it’s underfunded and out of step with other provinces. 

Male doctor sitting on a hospital bed in a hallway, holding his glasses in one hand and covering his face with the other hand in a stressed or tired gesture, with blurred medical staff and patients in the background.
Doctor in a white coat and glasses with a stethoscope around his neck, sitting and talking to a patient facing away from the camera in a medical office.

Since 2019 pay cuts, the AMA has pushed for reforms to:

  • Increase payments for fees designed to encourage physicians to provide services outside regular hours
  • Keep us competitive: Align Alberta’s POCP rates with other provinces where rates are much higher
  • Restore pre-2019 rates, plus 3% for inflation
  • Fund 100 new programs, including under-supported areas like rural maternity and continuing care

In late 2024, the AMA proposed an added $38 million — on top of the existing $93 million — to expand POCP, reverse rate cuts, and help stabilize emergency coverage across Alberta. Because if Alberta doesn’t act:

  • ER bottlenecks will get worse
  • Patients will wait longer, or not get care at all
  • Doctors will burn out or leave for better-paying provinces

And that’s when patient access to medical care is becoming more difficult.

  • Unpredictable schedules
  • Long, unpaid hospital shifts where a doctor must be available, unpaid, in case of critically ill patients
  • Grueling overnight work
  • High-stakes cases and rising burnout in a shrinking pool of highly skilled physicians

Albertans deserve 24/7 access to life-saving care. That starts with making sure doctors are ready when you need them most, and paid fairly for it.

Male doctor wearing glasses and a white coat with a stethoscope around his neck attentively explaining medical information to a female patient who is partially visible in the foreground.

Help build a better health care system.