Anyone who has recently had to navigate Alberta’s healthcare system knows that something is deeply wrong—there’s no need for headlines to confirm that our healthcare system is suffering.
Now, the statistics back up what many have felt firsthand. Alberta ranks third in Canada for the longest wait times for urgent medical procedures, and is eighth out of 13 provinces and territories in healthcare spending per person.
A recent study by Preszler Injury Lawyers reveals that Albertans, on average, wait a full year for urgent medical procedures. Meanwhile, the government of Alberta spends $9,041 for each person on healthcare, which is only $800 more than Ontario, which spends the least.
Lately, Alberta’s Premier Smith has been using the province’s dismal healthcare performance to advance her privatization agenda.
Bluster and Intimidation
Smith has been scaring Alberta Health Services (AHS) managers and threatening to turn over hospitals to the private sector if they don’t get their act together.
At a recent town hall meeting in Drayton Valley, Premier Danielle Smith told the audience she plans to hand over some rural hospitals to Covenant Health, which the Catholic Church owns.
“When you’re dealing with a monopoly,” Smith said, referring to AHS, “and they believe that they can deliver any type of care, and there are no consequences, they’re going to continue to deliver bad service.”
The Premier went on to mention “the fear of having it taken away …. as a very powerful competitive incentive for the managers to say, ‘Oh my goodness, if we continue to deliver terrible care in Drayton Valley, then somebody else is going to be chosen for the operator.’”
Privatizing health care is one of Smith’s pet projects and her preferred solution for delivering health services, even if Albertans aren’t keen on the idea.
Privatization Failure
A study released last year by the Parkland Institute showed that the province’s flagship privatization effort, the Alberta Surgical Initiative (ASI), looks like a big failure.
ASI, announced in 2019, would see $400 million in public money being spent on surgeries performed by private clinics.
“Contrary to government claims that outsourcing to for-profit facilities increases provincial surgical capacity, data suggest that the expansion of chartered surgical facilities (CSFs) has diverted resources away from public hospitals and, in turn, reduced provincial surgical volumes,” according to the study.
AHS is already stretched for resources. It’s facing the same shortage of medical professionals and morale issues that other Canadian provinces are facing.
The government’s effort to bleed the public system and privatize health delivery is making matters worse for AHS and Albertans, not better. It’s not having the promised efficiency and service improvements.
But it is making private healthcare operators richer.
That’s why Chris Gallaway, Executive Director of Friends of Medicare, wasn’t happy with Smith’s threatening tone at her recent Drayton Valley chinwag.
“Using Alberta Health Services as a scapegoat for our government’s own failings in health care is an age-old strategy here in Alberta, but Danielle Smith has turned it into a political obsession designed to rally her base against our public health care,” Gallaway said in a media release.
“The fact our Premier is making such a major announcement about our health care system at a party membership meeting in Drayton Valley, instead of to the public, highlights how her agenda in health care is about politics, not meeting the health needs of Albertans.”
Increase in Budget But for the Right Reasons?
In its latest budget released last February, the Alberta government earmarked $26.2 billion for health services, up 4.4 percent from the 2023-2024 forecast.
Superficially, that is good news.
However, the government also announced spending $85 million over the next two years to restructure and refocus AHS.
Dr. Paul Parks, president of the Alberta Medical Association(AMA), was optimistic at the time about increases in physician services and family medicine.
“We’re gonna try to make family medicine and Alberta competitive against our neighbouring provinces,” he told the Edmonton Journal.
However, Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) president Guy Smith was less optimistic. He said the budget doesn’t consider Alberta’s growing population and the demands of inflation. “The Premier says her government will deliberately underfund the services Albertans depend on, even in boom years, which includes 2024,” Smith said.
So, as Smith continually tinkers with our healthcare system, wait times increase, and Albertans suffer.
Provincial healthcare plans are being rolled out to UCP members in town halls, but most Albertans are left in the dark about the government’s actual plans to make our healthcare system work.
It seems politics take precedence in matters of public health in Alberta.
