A private Calgary hospital that has been performing hip, knee, foot and ankle operations for the past four years is fighting for its financial life.
Alberta Health Services, which oversees all hospitals in the province, filed an application in the Court of Queen's Bench on Friday to have an interim receiver appointed in the operations of the Health Resource Centre to protect the interests of patients during bankruptcy proceedings.
A continuing legal dispute between Networc Health Inc., which owns HRC, and one of its creditors led the court to appoint PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc. as the interim receiver.
"The reason we did that was to ensure that patient care is protected and the hip and knee and foot and ankle surgeries that we're performing at that site are not disrupted," explained Deb Gordon, a senior vice-president with Alberta Health Services.
"We found out in the early part of April and we became aware because of other court documents that had been filed. At that point we felt we had to start working to protect the interests of our patients and their families."
Alberta NDP Leader Brian Mason said the government should simply take over ownership and operation of the HRC.
"Albertans want a publicly funded and publicly delivered health-care system so that they can avoid this exact scenario," Mr. Mason said in a news release.
"Patients waiting for hip and knee surgeries at this clinic have been victimized by this government's move toward private health care."
Mr. Mason said the Alberta government erred when it originally sanctioned private surgical facilities such as HRC and argued that public hospitals offer better services at less overall cost to the taxpayer.
"Albertans can't depend on a medical system that put profits before patients."
The facility was originally the Salvation Army Grace Hospital, one of three Calgary hospitals closed in the mid-1990s.
It has been under contract to perform 900 surgeries a year and the news of its problems came as a surprise, said Ms. Gordon.
"They are busy and they do a good amount of work," she said.
"I guess you never really know what exactly is going on for people in their businesses and again that's not really our concern. Our concern is to make sure the care for the patients is uninterrupted if at all possible."
Ms. Gordon said it is "business as usual" at the hospital at this point and a judge will hear submissions Monday on whether to appoint an interim receiver.
Alberta Health Services is readying a plan just in case things don't go well on Monday.
"Our preference is to ensure they continue as planned and that's our first choice," she said. "In the event they were not able to do that, of course, we are beginning to work with our teams and anticipate what our contingency plans would look like."
There have been critics of Alberta's decision to include privatization as part of its health strategy but Ms. Gordon said it has worked well so far.
"From our experience this has been a good relationship for us - a good partnership and the patient care has been very good at that location."
The Canadian Press