A workplace injury last spring left Amber Rees with severe back pain and unable to move her left leg.
What began as a familiar workday turned into more than a month inside Red Deer Regional Hospital, and a long fight to be taken seriously.
VIDEO: Calgary Journal reporter Julianna Adair reports on one woman’s concerns about the care she received from Alberta health-care
Rees says she underwent painful physiotherapy and medication changes to treat her back pain, all while doctors overlooked her immobile leg, potentially worsening her condition.
It wasn’t until her husband arrived nearly two weeks into her stay that doctors ordered new imaging and paused treatment. Rees was later diagnosed with a functional neurological disorder, a label she says a specialist has since disputed.
After being discharged, Rees returned home to a two-story house she could no longer navigate.
With no access to ramps, shower railings or consistent home-care visits, she uses her walker to drag her leg behind her, inching through the home she once moved through freely.
Rees continues to advocate for her health as she works through the Workers’ Compensation Board Alberta delays and appeals for a new diagnosis and rehabilitation access.
From constant ward transfers to missing referrals, advocates say Rees’s story highlights how easily communication breakdowns in Alberta’s healthcare system can derail a patient’s care.
For its part, the governing UCP says its reforms to the health-care system, and splitting up Alberta Health Services, in particular, would bring a new “era of efficiency, accessibility and patient-centred care.”