EDMONTON — Last Thursday, the government tabled Bill 55: Health Statutes Amendment Act in the Legislature. This sweeping 332 page Bill includes significant changes to Alberta’s health care system, impacting 54 pieces of legislation under 19 ministries of the government.
While there are many worrying parts contained in the proposed legislation, a change on page 90 is of particular concern to Friends of Medicare. This consolidates all existing hospital designations under a new 'designation of hospital operators' section, which would allow the government to appoint entities “other than a provincial health agency or provincial health corporation” to operate hospitals, allowing for an easy pathway for the government to turn over designated hospital sites to for-profit corporations at the will of the Minister.
“The government is trying to sneak through massive changes to our public health care delivery by burying them within the many pages of Bill 55. This proposed legislation needs to be pulled from the Order Paper immediately,” said Chris Gallaway, executive director of Friends of Medicare. “Allowing Bill 55 to pass would queue things up for the government to very quickly turn over our public hospital infrastructure to be operated by private, for-profit interests — something they’ve been building the groundwork to do for many months.”
This follows concerning changes within the provincial budget and other recent moves which sparked Friends of Medicare to send out a red alert about the possibility of our public hospitals being privatized. As of April 1st, the titles for hundreds of health care facilities were brought directly under the ownership of the provincial government through Alberta Infrastructure.
At a government press conference on February 28, the Premier was asked whether this title change was part of “a plan to sell hospitals to private entities or private corporations.” The Premier did not answer confirm or deny, but instead stated that the change “will allow for us to choose the operator. And that will allow us to repurpose them to our needs.”
“Any plan to privatize hospitals or acute care facilities should be a non-starter. Yet given the track record of the UCP government, Albertans have plenty of cause to be concerned,” said Gallaway. “We have sitting government Ministers and MLAs who have publicly supported plans for a for-profit Urgent Care Centre in Airdrie and a massive private health facility in Fort McMurray, while the government has allegedly gone to great lengths to sign costly contracts that accelerate our use of private surgical centres instead of doing anything to expand operating capacity in our public hospitals.”
At a private UCP membership meeting last summer, the Premier was recorded musing about turning hospitals over to Covenant Health or other private operators, an idea consistent with the government’s record. Since being elected, this government has recklessly forged ahead with their agenda to hand over our public health care dollars and facilities to private for-profit operators, including labs, treatment centres, concerning contracts with private surgical centres, and more.
“Alberta’s population continues to boom, and we are already thousands of hospital beds short across our province — something this year’s budget failed to address. Instead, the government remains preoccupied with their chaotic restructuring plans and health care privatization schemes,” said Gallaway. “Albertans deserve to see a capacity plan that will ensure we have the beds and workers we need to provide timely, quality health care. Instead, this government keeps trying to find new ways to hand our public assets over to their friends to turn a profit off of.”
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