Hi everyone, Mark Iype in Edmonton today.
Since Danielle Smith became premier of Alberta last year, she has made some waves.
There’s the sovereignty act of course. And the pause on the development of renewable energy projects. And in the past few weeks, lots of talk about the creation of an Alberta Pension Plan, which has unsurprisingly sparked a boisterous war of words between the province and Ottawa.
But this week, Smith announced her plan to overhaul Alberta’s health care system – a multiyear, multimillion-dollar transition that the government says will help reduce wait times and inefficiencies while decentralizing the arms-length Alberta Health Services and deliver more decision-making and accountability to regions.
Her political career revived in part because of her distaste for restrictions imposed by AHS during the COVID-19 pandemic, Smith has made no secret of her plan to redefine how health care is delivered in the province. Running for leader of the United Conservative Party last fall, it was one of her major talking points. After winning, she fired the AHS board and replaced it with a single administrator. Fast forward to this week, we now have a little more clarity about how the system will look.
In a bid to empower the regions, 12 regional advisory councils and an Indigenous advisory council will be created to get more input from the front lines, according to the government.
“They’re going to be playing an enhanced advisory role in ensuring that we’re able to refocus each and every facility in each community,” Smith said.
While AHS’s role is dismantled and minimized to that of a hospital administrator, the UCP said it will divide the health provider into four organizations: primary care, acute care, continuing care, and mental health and addictions. They will be connected by what the government calls an integration council.
NDP Leader Rachel Notley described the changes as a “demolition plan” and warned of creeping privatization, but Health Minister Adriana LaGrange dismissed those concerns.
“There is absolutely no plan to privatize health care,” she said in the legislature.
According to the plan, the government expects to spend $85-million on legal, consulting, system integration, potential severances and other supports to transition over the next 18 months.
The premier has also said the government will protect jobs as best it can. Some AHS bureaucrats will move to Alberta Health as part of the reorganization. And while front-line staff will remain in place, Smith did not indicate how many people will lose their jobs in the transition.
This is the weekly Western Canada newsletter written by B.C. Editor Wendy Cox and Alberta Bureau Chief Mark Iype. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.
Wendy Cox