Alberta government to fund more private surgical facilities to reduce hospital wait times

Alberta Health Services will be contracting more privately-owned chartered surgical facilities to relieve surgical wait times at hospitals in the province.

In a news conference on Wednesday morning, Health Minister Jason Copping said AHS is funding an additional 1,350 surgeries in the central zone and 1,250 procedures in the south zone. This includes Red Deer in the central zone and Medicine Hat in the south zone.

Copping said this includes hip and knee replacements and general surgeries, among others. All procedures will be publicly funded.

“This is a step forward in a number of ways… Patients will get the surgeries they need sooner and they will be closer to home,” Copping said.

“It’s the same service you get from the hospital from the same surgeons following the same clinical standards.”

Copping said the contracts will benefit the public health-care system financially.

“This also has two advantages for the health system: it reduces costs which frees up more dollars to invest in more surgeries and frees up hospital operating rooms for more complex procedures,” he said.

The news comes as hospitals across Canada struggle to deal with backlogs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which canceled thousands of surgeries across the country.

In 2019, Alberta created the Alberta Surgical Initiative to tackle backlogs but that was put on hold due to the pandemic. Since then, the government has contracted independent providers for health care services, which it has attributed to reduced wait times for cataract surgeries.

“If anybody tries to argue that contracting out publicly insured surgeries to privately-operated clinics is risky and unclear, the data says the opposite is true,” Premier Jason Kenney said at Wednesday’s news conference.

“We contract out surgeries because doing that means we get more surgeries done, more quickly… All of them are publicly insured.”

But several experts have said privatization would make no difference in emergency rooms nor will it solve Canada’s nursing shortage problem because it creates inequalities, costs more and compromises quality of care. Throwing more money at the problem is also not a solution, they added.

Provinces like Alberta should focus on optimizing existing public facilities and educate health authorities on how to optimally utilize funds instead.

“Privatization of anything would make no difference in the emergency room wait times next week or a year from now. It’s just zero difference. They’re completely different issues,” Dr. Michael Rachlis told Global News. Rachlis is a public health physician and adjunct professor at the University of Toronto.

“If the provinces get a lot of money with no conditions, they’re simply going to be mugged when they get back home and it’ll be more money for the same set of services, and that’s not sustainable.”

In an emailed statement on Wednesday, NDP Leader Rachel Notley said the Alberta government “mismanaged” the province’s health-care system and created a crisis.

“Right now, dozens of hospitals are partially closed across the province… There are also serious shortages in our ambulance system and doctors’ offices,” Notley’s statement read.

“The UCP’s mismanagement of health care led to this crisis. Privatizing health care will make the situation worse by taking scarce resources and staff away from our struggling public system.”

Fall COVID-19 surge will be ‘unprecedented,’ says Kenney.

On Wednesday, Kenney said he doesn’t think a fall surge of COVID-19 cases will have a strain on Alberta’s health-care system.

When asked by a reporter if a fall COVID-19 wave will impact surgical wait times, Kenney said he doesn’t “accept the premise of the question” and the new variants of the virus have “less” severity and hospitalizations.

“In the summer we saw a relatively small wave of the Omicron BA.5 sub-variant here and around the world. We monitored that very closely but it did not result in significant additional pressure on the health-care system,” Kenney said.

“As we watch COVID here and around the world, it appears to be a less severe sub-variant. There is a possibility that things will go another direction but that is unprecedented in epidemiological history.”

Copping said the upcoming flu season and a potential COVID-19 wave will impact hospital capacity but the province is putting plans in place to manage it.

He also said the province is investing in health care like never before.

“We understand that we’re going to get another (COVID-19) wave this fall and it’ll likely be a bad flu season but we’re continuing to add capacity throughout the system,” Copping said.

–With files from Global News’ Saba Aziz and Jamie Mauracher.