Oil shortage to have widespread impact

Expert warns health services will feel pain

Depleted oil reserves may not only be tough on your gas tank, it may also be hazardous for your health.

Peak oil is a term that will become more and more familiar as the world’s oil stocks become depleted and harder to reach, said Dr. Donald Spady, an associate professor of pediatrics and public health sciences in the faculty of medicine and dentistry at the University of Alberta.


“Ultimately we have an absolute shortage of oil, which becomes progressively worse over time,” he said yesterday, after giving a lecture to Capital Health’s public health workers.

But his warning was aimed at the effect an oil shortage will have on health services.

It will be more expensive to run hospitals, which are large energy consumers, ambulances will become more expensive because of the high fuel costs, but that’s not all, he warned.

“Drugs will gradually become much more expensive and perhaps not even available,” he said.

Spady said some of the warning signs of an impending crisis are already here, but experts vary on when the crunch will come – if at all, he said.

Edmonton Sun