Good morning everyone.

Alberta Health Services confirmed on Thursday that 21 of the 42 family medicine beds at the University of Alberta Hospital in Edmonton will be relocated to Leduc, a community south of the city.

The move comes despite a warning earlier this week from physicians working on the units that closing those beds will further strain an already overburdened system and will have a negative effect on patient care.

“As health care workers are stretched to their limits, the loss of these beds is more than frustrating – it is infuriating. It represents a failure to support and acknowledge the tireless work of the teams who continue to provide care under increasingly untenable conditions,” wrote the physicians in a statement shared with The Globe and Mail.

“We are concerned this change will increase substandard care, extend hospital stays, and increase the risk of adverse patient outcomes, including death.”

The physicians who penned the statement did not sign their names for fear of reprisals that could affect their employment.

Family medicine units provide care to acutely ill patients with a range of complex medical and social needs, such as seniors with dementia and trauma patients who do not require surgery. The physicians fear that moving the beds to Leduc Community Hospital is not an equivalent substitute, where care is considered subacute and specialized services are limited.

Kristi Bland, a spokesperson for Alberta Health Services, in a statement said the beds will be closed to make room for a neurosciences intensive care unit, which will provide specialized care for patients with complex neurological and neurosurgical disorders – a plan first announced in 2018.

“There is no anticipated bed loss associated with this relocation. When relocated, the unit will continue to operate with its full staffing with the same level of care that is currently provided to family medicine patients,” Bland said.

Doctors, however, said moving the beds will also strain emergency departments, which have been in crisis for weeks as the province struggles through a dangerous respiratory virus season.

“These family medicine beds are essential for alleviating pressures on emergency departments by accommodating patients with a broad range of medical needs who cannot be discharged due to the severity of their conditions,” the physicians said in their joint statement.

Emergency department physicians have been urging the government to declare a state of emergency over the situation in Edmonton hospitals, but thus far, the province has declined to make that move.

The confirmation that the beds were being moved out of the capital city came as the Alberta government said it is ordering a fatality inquiry into the death of a man who spent eight hours in an Edmonton emergency room.

Matt Jones, Minister of Hospital and Surgical Health Services, one of four ministers responsible for health care in Alberta, said Thursday a provincial judge will clarify the circumstances surrounding the death of Prashant Sreekumar, a 44-year-old father of three who died on Dec. 22 at Grey Nuns Community Hospital.

Jones said he had “concerns and unanswered questions” about Sreekumar’s death after reviewing probes conducted by Acute Care Alberta and Covenant Health, the publicly funded Catholic operator of Grey Nuns.

“While system-level improvements are under way, a detailed, independent and public review of how the specific case was managed also needs to be undertaken. We owe that to his family and to all Albertans,” he said.

The judge will issue findings publicly and could provide recommendations.

Sreekumar was one of three people who died in the Grey Nuns ED on Dec. 22. Patrick Dumelie, chief executive of Covenant Health, said on Thursday that the two other deaths, the details of which are sparse, were reviewed internally.

“Regrettably, the emergency department sees some very acutely ill people who experience heart attacks and other things associated with this,” Dumelie said. “I can say that those two other incidents have been followed through on . . . and the matter is being well addressed.”

This is the weekly Alberta newsletter written by Alberta Bureau Chief Mark Iype. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.