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When Sheila Weatherill took control of the largest integrated health authority in Canada two years ago she faced a revolt of the region's 1,700 doctors and health cuts that had gone far deeper than the Canadian public was willing to tolerate.
Today the bridges are mended with once-alienated physicians in Edmonton's Capital Health Authority. And skeptical politicians have been convinced to "reinvest" $650 million of the province's surplus back into key areas of care, bringing total health spending in Alberta back to $4.2 billion.
And most commentators concede this former bedside nurse, with a bachelor's degree in science and a diploma in public health, has managed to pull the $1-billion-a-year health authority back from the edge of the political precipice and achieve some stability in the hugely complex monolith over which she rules.
"My impression is she's done quite a good job," says usually outspoken University of Alberta health economist Dr. Richard Plain. "She has the system under fairly good managerial control." Weatherill presented government with well-substantiated arguments for more money while keeping the fires damped down on the medical and labor fronts, he explained. "At one stage there was a question how viable the system was in terms of the attacks going on and the concerns that were raised," Plain added.
In 1994 Premier Ralph Klein dissolved over 100 Alberta hospitals boards at the stroke of a pen, replacing them with 17 regional boards, of which Edmonton's Capital Health Authority and its 16,000 employees was the largest. Only Canada Safeway, the Alberta government itself and Canadian Airlines were bigger corporate entities in...