EDMONTON — Earlier today, the Alberta government announced a new acute care funding model, which involves switching to activity-based funding for surgeries, rather than using global hospital budgeting, essentially moving to a voucher model. This is a concerning shift that will impact Alberta hospital’s budgets.
“Rather than getting to work addressing much-needed capacity and workforce planning for public health care, the Premier is blowing things up even further with a plan to use public money to accelerate health care privatization,” said Chris Gallaway, executive director of Friends of Medicare. “There is nothing new or innovative about vouchers, they’re a long-time, ideological strategy designed to make it easier to dismantle universal public services and turn them over for private profit.”
Today’s announcement contained a slew of empty promises, with absolutely no information provided to justify their claims. In fact, the data indicates just the opposite: last month, a new report from the Parkland Institute showed the government’s approach of shifting surgeries from public hospitals over to for-profit centres is continuing to fail to deliver on the government’s promised outcomes of shorter wait times and lower costs.
“The government’s ongoing focus on promoting competition over ensuring quality of care should be extremely concerning to patients in this province. We deserve a system that is well-resourced to meet Albertans’ health care needs,” says Gallaway. “Instead, this government has been systematically undermining our health care system to the point that it is operating perpetually over-capacity, and unequipped to respond to challenges or crises.”
This announcement also comes just days after the government seized ownership of hospitals from Alberta Health Services, and as the very serious and concerning allegations about contracts with for-profit surgical centres are ongoing.
“This appears to be the government doubling down on a failing surgical strategy as a distraction from the ongoing allegations and scandal around the procurement of surgical contracts with for-profit centres,” said Gallaway. “If the Premier was serious about shortening wait times for Albertans, she would invest in expanding use of operating rooms in our public hospitals, get the Royal Alexandra Hospital operating again and get serious about a workforce strategy for Alberta’s health care.”
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