Albertans deserve a second opinion on the Health Resource Centre's empty boasts

After racking up millions of dollars in debt and leaving Albertans stuck with the bill, Networc Health, the parent company of the private surgical facility Health Resource Centre, is hardly in a position to boast as their medical director Stephen Miller was trying to do on Tuesday."

Consider the facts:

According to the report of the interim receiver, in addition to the $765 000 in receiver costs, $1.3 million in secured debt, all facility costs through January 2011 including 906 000 in monthly rent, Networc health has unsecured debt of $8.4 million.
In the second report of the interim receiver (PriceWaterHouse Cooper) the salaries of the HRC senior management team are made public. The interim receiver "requested that the senior management team propose revisions to management compensation and, other than an offer from one of the management team to eliminate his car allowance, no proposal has been received...AHS has expressed to the IR its view that management compensation is excessive and should be curtailed...The IR recommends that the senior management be encouraged to revise its compensation."
The interim receiver projects that Networc health will incur $1.4 million in legal costs over the next 6 months.

David Eggen, Executive Director of Friends of Medicare, says this is an excellent reminder that private contracts for public services are more expensive, less efficient, and certainly less transparent than the public equivalent. "Let's not forget this private facility would be shut down and not delivering any medical services if Alberta Health Services wasn't forced to bail them out. The government should cut these investor driven private health schemes loose from the public purse before we wind up losing more money and compromising the security of our health system even further.