I stared at the beige walls of Edmonton’s Stollery Children’s Hospital waiting room, watching Jamie Miller check her phone for the fifth time in an hour. Her son Elliot, 7, sat quietly beside her, a Batman comic splayed across his lap, though his eyes weren’t following the pages.
“We drove three hours to get here,” Jamie whispered, careful not to let Elliot hear her frustration. “This is the second time this month they’ve told us there’s no bed for his chemo. How do you tell a child with leukemia to just wait?“
The Millers’ situation isn’t isolated. Across Alberta, families of children with cancer are facing a healthcare crisis that rarely makes headlines: pediatric oncology departments so overwhelmed that children scheduled for chemotherapy are being sent home without treatment.
According to internal Alberta Health Services data I obtained through a freedom of information request, at least 47 pediatric cancer patients experienced treatment delays of more than 72 hours between January and April 2024 at the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton and the Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary.
Dr. Naomi Parker, pediatric oncologist at the University of Alberta Hospital, explained the devastating impact of these delays. “Cancer treatment protocols are precisely timed. When we interrupt that schedule, we potentially compromise outcomes. This isn’t elective surgery—these are life-saving interventions.“
The crisis stems from multiple systemic failures. Hospital bed capacity hasn’t increased proportionally with Alberta’s population growth, which Statistics Canada reports has risen 15% in the past decade. Meanwhile, nursing shortages have left existing beds unstaffed.
“We’re making impossible choices every day,” a charge nurse told me during my visit to the oncology ward, requesting anonymity to speak freely. “Do we admit the new diagnosis or the child who needs their scheduled treatment? These are decisions no medical professional should have to make.”
For families like the Templetons from Fort McMurray, the costs extend beyond medical concerns. Their daughter Maya, 10, has been battling neuroblastoma for 14 months. They’ve had treatment delayed three times since February.
“We’re spending thousands on hotels and meals,” Mark Templeton explained when I met the family during their fifth day of waiting for an inpatient bed. “I’ve burned through all my vacation days. My wife had to quit her job. The system is asking us to sacrifice everything, including our daughter’s best chance at survival.”
The Alberta Children’s Cancer Foundation reports a 34% increase in financial assistance requests from families facing extended stays and repeat trips for delayed treatments.
Dr. Sophie Henderson, who researches healthcare delivery at the University of Calgary’s O’Brien Institute for Public Health, points to multiple compounding factors. “We’re seeing the results of years of healthcare budget constraints meeting population growth, staffing challenges, and increasingly complex care needs.”
I visited the pediatric cancer ward one Tuesday morning in March, when sunlight streamed through windows onto empty beds. Not because there weren’t children needing those beds—the waiting room held five families whose treatments had been postponed—but because there weren’t enough nurses to staff them.
“We have the physical space,” one administrator explained. “What we don’t have is the staff to safely provide care.”
Alberta Health Services spokesperson Maria Chen provided a statement acknowledging the challenges: “We recognize that any delay in cancer treatment is deeply concerning for patients and families. AHS is actively working to address staffing shortages through recruitment initiatives and training programs for specialized pediatric oncology nurses.”
But these solutions will take months or years to implement—time that children with cancer don’t have.
When I returned to the waiting room, I found Jamie Miller packing up Elliot’s toys. “They’ve just told us to go home and they’ll call when there’s space,” she said, her voice breaking. “That could be tomorrow or next week.”
The human cost of these systemic failures became clearest when I spoke with Dr. Liam Johnston, who has practiced pediatric oncology in Alberta for over two decades.
“In all my years of practice, I’ve never had to tell so many families to go home without the treatment their child desperately needs,” he said, visibly distressed. “We know early and consistent intervention is crucial for pediatric cancer. These delays—they keep me up at night.”
Parent advocacy groups have formed in response to the crisis. The Alberta Pediatric Cancer Treatment Access Coalition, founded by parents of affected children, has gathered over 8,000 signatures on a petition demanding emergency funding for additional staffed beds.
Coalition founder Teresa Blackburn explained their position: “We understand healthcare budgets are complex, but we’re talking about children with cancer. If this isn’t a priority, what is?”
When I left the hospital that evening, Jamie and Elliot Miller were still waiting, hoping a bed might open up. Jamie had already called her boss to explain she wouldn’t be at work again tomorrow. Elliot’s Batman comic lay forgotten as he dozed against his mother’s shoulder.
Outside the window, Edmonton’s skyline glittered with promise and prosperity. Inside, families waited for a healthcare system that seems increasingly unable to deliver on its most fundamental commitment: providing critical care to those who need it most urgently.
For children with cancer in Alberta, time is the one resource they cannot afford to waste. Yet a system in crisis continues to ask them to do exactly that.
