EDMONTON — Yesterday, the Parkland Institute released a crucial and timely report titled Operation Profit: Private Surgical Contracts Deliver Higher Costs and Longer Waits. The report lays out clearly that the government is continuing to make a political decision to reward private, for-profit surgical centres at the expense of our public hospitals and the health of all Albertans.
Rather than investing in frontline workers and services, the report shows the government is diverting public money to private care providers, nearly tripling the funding given to these for-profit entities. Meanwhile, wait times for vital procedures continue to skyrocket.
“The government continues to claim that privatizing surgeries will save money, expand surgical capacity and shorten wait times for Albertans, yet yesterday’s report is the latest in a series of reports that expose these claims as blatantly false,” said Chris Gallaway, executive director of Friends of Medicare. “The truth is surgical privatization is hurting our public hospitals, fragmenting the workforce, and increasing wait times for life-saving surgeries such as cancer procedures. The government must stop this harmful privatization agenda and focus on increasing capacity in our public hospitals and operating rooms.”
These findings come alongside alarming allegations about surgical procurement interference from the former Alberta Health Services (AHS) CEO. The former CEO believes that "she was fired because she launched 'an internal investigation and forensic audit' into AHS’s contracts and procurement processes." The Auditor General and RCMP have opened investigations into these allegations, but the government stubbornly refuses to call a truly independent public inquiry and the Health Minister refuses to resign from her role while these claims are investigated.
“The government has continued to push forward with lucrative contracts to for-profit surgical centres even as all evidence shows privatization through the Alberta Surgical Initiative is failing to deliver. Given the unsettling allegations from the former AHS CEO, Albertans are right to wonder why?” said Gallaway. “We need a truly independent public inquiry to investigate surgical procurement. At this point, anything less is completely unacceptable.”
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