Hospital overcrowding directly contributed to six people dying while waiting for emergency care in Alberta during a recent two-week period, according to a leaked report.
About 20 other patients, who waited hours for care and could have died in emergency waiting rooms or hospital hallways, were also listed in the report posted online.
Dr. Paul Parks, emergency department physician and president-elect of the section of emergency medicine with the Alberta Medical Association (AMA), compiled but did not leak the internal document, detailing patients’ suffering.
I collated these anonymized cases and sent it internally, and can confirm the authenticity and veracity.
I feel obliged to state: I did NOT provide this to The Breakdown. But I fully support whoever did, and understand why they would feel it was important to do so. https://t.co/2mJkqFLRiX
— Parksy (@PfParks) January 19, 2026
“Hallways and waiting rooms have become DEATH ZONES,” said the report about a cardiac patient who died in a hallway and might have been saved with early medical intervention.
Another patient with a bowel obstruction/perforation waited eight hours and became septic. She died about 24 hours after emergency surgery.
“There was never a chance to get to this patient because so many other acute patients kept bumping her from getting the next available care space in the emergency department,” the report said.
An initially stable patient with septic/renal failure spent nearly 24 hours in an emergency department and died waiting for a specialty assessment.
Alberta’s NDP said the tragic deaths in the report show how extensive the health care crisis is, with emergency departments at over 100 per cent capacity and some temporarily closed in rural communities.
“This is not normal, and it’s not just a bad flu season. Albertans need to see real action now, and that’s why Alberta’s New Democrats are calling on the UCP to admit we are in a crisis and emergency,” said Naheed Nenshi, Leader of the Official Opposition of Alberta, in a statement.
“We must listen to the frontline workers, doctors, health-care advocates and patients who are speaking up and showing us the reality of our health care system as the UCP dismantles AHS (Alberta Health Services) in front of us. More and sustained action will be needed before this gets better — Albertans’ lives depend on it.”
The NDP said the UCP government must declare a state of emergency and the legislature reconvened to hold legislators accountable and provide regular updates. With the dismantling of AHS into four separate agencies with four separate ministers, a strict command structure must be immediately reinstated with clear management protocols.
Hospital and Surgical Health Services Minister Matt Jones said there has always been coordination of care at the provincial, corridor and site levels. The unverified, anonymous cases that were shared were concerning, but didn’t represent the incredible care the system provides.
“The health care system in Alberta serves about 30,000 people per day. Our emergency departments see about two million visits per year. And in a very small percentage of those cases, 0.07 per cent roughly, people do lose their lives. What we try to do is we try to learn from those as a system, and we certainly investigate those as warranted by the circumstances,” Jones said.
The minister said he has met with doctors concerned about how pressures on the health care system impact patient care, which it does, he added.
“All day long we want to work with everyone to make the system better and improve care,” said Jones after announcing that construction was complete on a $151-million expansion of Calgary’s Peter Lougheed Centre.
James Gault, vice president with the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE), said when hospitals are so short-staffed and patients are not getting the help they need, blame is directed at hospital workers.
“You have people who are sick. People who are frustrated. People who have mental health issues that aren’t getting treated,” said Gault, who also chairs the union’s Occupational Health and Safety Committee.
“People are upset and they’re taking it out on whoever they can.”