The Alberta government has announced that Dr. Mark Joffe, currently vice-president and medical director for Cancer Care Alberta and already in a contract with Alberta Health Services, will replace Dr. Deena Hinshaw as the province’s chief medical officer of health, effective immediately.
The move means Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has followed through on a promise she made at her first news conference as premier on Oct. 11, when she said she would be getting new advice on public health and replacing Hinshaw.
“I appreciate the work that Dr. Deena Hinshaw has done, but I think that we are in a new phase where we are now talking about treating coronavirus as endemic, as we do influenza,” she said at the time.
Hinshaw was initially appointed by an NDP government on Jan 21, 2019, and was responsible for hundreds of COVID-19 orders mandating restrictions throughout the endemic.
“Dr. Joffe has dedicated himself to improving the health of Albertans throughout his career. He brings this wealth of experience and knowledge to the role of chief medical officer of health. I look forward to working with him,” Copping said.
Joffe has considerable experience with infectious diseases. He previously chaired the Royal Alexandra Hospital Medical Staff Society and served two terms as president of the Capital Region Medical Staff Association. He was president of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases of Canada, and has a specialist certificate in internal medicine and a certificate of special competence in infectious diseases from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.
Joffe, a Calgary native, is also a professor in the department of medicine at the University of Alberta, and did a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Alberta and the Stanford University School of Medicine.
He will not receive additional compensation for his role as chief medical officer of health.
“We will be making an announcement in that regard in the coming days,” she said. “We will make sure that the advice that school boards and parents need to receive will be received by the chief medical officer of health.”
Smith also said she would not be bringing in mandates to deal with flu season. Alberta schools are reporting absenteeism due to illness at higher than 10 percent. Smith said she was concerned about a shortage of children’s pain and fever medications, and long hospital wait times at children’s hospitals.
“Anyone who feels comfortable to wear a mask should wear a mask. That should be a personal choice, and anyone who wants to make that choice, I support them,” she said.
“We’ve heard loud and clear from parents that they want a normal school environment for their kids, and we are going to let kids be kids.”
Smith added, “I don’t want us to get into a situation where we think that the kind of extreme measures taken during COVID are going to become the normal. We’ve had two-and-a-half years of school disruption and we want to make sure that we don’t have any additional disruptions.”
Smith told reporters a new doctor’s advisory panel is also coming.
