St. Albert's two MLAs see a report assessing Alberta Health Services (AHS) very differently.
On Monday morning, the UCP provincial government released a review of AHS conducted by Ernst & Young to the tune of $2 million. The group gathered feedback from around 1,200 physicians and 27,000 frontline staff and presented 57 recommendations along with more than 70 ways to achieve savings.
Overall, the report contains a range of options the provincial government can consider to save anywhere from $1.5 billion to $1.9 billion annually, but Health Minister Tyler Shandro said those numbers aren’t achievable because they don’t consider the costs to implement the changes.
Some of the changes highlighted in the report include privatizing some of the services AHS delivers, including contracting out surgeries, hospital food service, housekeeping, laundry, security and lab testing. Another recommendation of the report is to lower physician and nurse compensation.
St. Albert NDP MLA Marie Renaud said she is concerned about job losses and impacted health care delivery in the wake of the report. Renaud also said the shift to more privatized services is concerning.
“We know that when health care is privatized, not everybody is served the same way and it doesn't necessarily have the outcomes as promised,” Renaud said.
Morinville-St. Albert UCP MLA Dale Nally said the province is not moving toward an American-style privatized health care system.
“This is about getting better results. The angry left wants to use words like private as though it’s the enemy of health care,” Nally said.
Nally said waiting lists are long for services in the province and the government wants to make sure people have access to surgeries more quickly.
“We want better results than just access to a waiting lists,” Nally said.
Renaud said Alberta should be investing “in a smart way” in healthcare in the province.
Nally said the government can’t continue to spend like they have in the past.
“If you go back to the MacKinnon Report, it was very clear that we are outliers in spending on salaries for both doctors and nurses and we have to bring that in line. We are not the richest jurisdiction in North America and we have to live within our means,” Nally said.
