Oct. 17, 2013 — The Alberta government is releasing a wellness strategy to help make Alberta a healthier place to live, work and raise a family, a statement from the Ministry of Health said.
The strategy aims to improve health outcomes for Albertans by focusing
on preventive actions that can be taken to reduce illnesses like heart
disease and diabetes. This will also save Albertans money as these
preventable illnesses cost millions of dollars a year to treat.
Alberta’s
Strategic Approach to Wellness is designed to start a proactive
conversation with Albertans, community groups, businesses, industry and
the private sector, other levels of government, and non-government
organizations, the ministry said.
"We can choose to deal with
increasing childhood obesity by building more hospitals to deal with
diabetes, heart disease or kidney failure that they will develop or we
can move upstream and change the factors that are causing the increase
in childhood obesity. Prevention by increasing health and wellness is
the better strategy," said Dr. James Talbot, Alberta's chief medical
officer of health.
The cost for treating preventable illnesses is
rising every year, according to the health ministry, and is a
significant contributor to increasing health costs. Health care spending
accounts for 45 per cent of Alberta’s budget.
"Wellness is
something that we build with our families, schools, communities and
workplaces," said Dave Rodney, associate minister of wellness. "It’s a
shared responsibility. Alberta’s Strategic Approach to Wellness will
allow government, partners and all Albertans to take collective action
so we can all enjoy happy and healthy lives, without a need to go to the
hospital to treat a preventable illness or disease."
Cost of preventable illness:
• Almost 217,000 Albertans were living with diabetes in 2010, costing approximately $215 million in direct costs.
• In 2011, more than 162,000 Albertans were living with ischemic heart disease and almost 7,000 Albertans suffered a stroke.
•
Heart disease and stroke costs the Canadian economy more than $20.9
billion every year in physician services, hospital costs, lost wages and
decreased productivity.
• More than 10,000 Albertans were diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in 2011.
• Hospital admissions for this disease are for approximately 10 days, with a cost of almost $10,000 per stay.
Improving
the health of Albertans is a primary focus of the government. More than
half of Albertans are considered overweight or obese. About 19 per cent
of the province's residents over the age of 12 misuse tobacco, and 13
per cent drink excessively. Preventable injury is the leading cause of
death in Alberta, according to the Ministry of Health.
The
Government of Alberta has undertaken a number of initiatives over the
past few years to help improve the quality of life for Albertans and to
reduce the burden that preventable illness puts on the health-care
system.
Initiatives like the Social Policy Framework, Poverty
Reduction Strategy, Early Childhood Development, Tobacco Reduction
Strategy, an Healthy U initiatives like the 5&1 Experiment, UWALK
and the Jr. Chef App will support Alberta’s Strategic Approach to
Wellness and continue to move the wellness agenda forward in Alberta,
the ministry said.
"Our government was elected to keep building
Alberta, to live within its means and to fight to open new markets for
Alberta’s resources. We will continue to deliver the responsible change
Albertans voted for," the ministry statement said.
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