EDMONTON – Alberta Liberal Leader David Swann took a step into the past Wednesday in delivering his party’s new health-care platform, which calls for the re-establishment of regional health-care authorities.
The province used to operate with 12 such authorities until the Tory government consolidated them into the Alberta Health Services superboard. Swann’s plan calls for AHS to be dismantled over two years and replaced with five new health delivery zones, one each for northern Alberta, southern Alberta, central Alberta, Calgary and Edmonton. The Liberal leader said it was inappropriate for a superboard to be managing the whole province’s health system, in part because it doesn’t respond well to regional concerns.
“We have to get back to basics,” Swann said at the legislature. “We have to stop playing administrative games and start allocating resources efficiently where we can get results.”
He said the regional authorities would include both appointed and elected board members.
The policy also calls for new incentives to attract and retain more family doctors, create more long-term and continuing-care beds, and clear the backlog of elective surgeries.
Swann said the province also needs to put more emphasis on prevention. He said a Liberal government would ban trans fats in the province, since they are known to contribute to conditions such as early heart attacks. The idea follows a policy Calgary implemented a few years ago. Swann’s policy would prohibit fast-food companies from using trans fats but would also apply to imported food.
The policy document provides no costs for implementing these measures, but Swann said there is already enough money in the system to get the job done if it is used more efficiently. He said there could even be some savings because effective prevention measures should reduce health-care costs.
Alberta has the highest per-capita spending on health care of all the Canadian provinces.
Swann, who is stepping down, acknowledged the platform could be altered once a new Liberal leader is chosen in September, but said the policy represents a year of work from the caucus.
Edmonton Journal
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