Long wait times for appointments to get tests and other complaints about Alberta’s laboratory services have reached the ears of the premier, who said another direction may be needed if DynaLIFE doesn’t meet the demand.
In Calgary, appointments for bloodwork were booking into July when Global News checked on Monday.
“I’m hearing that all over, that DynaLIFE has not met performance expectations,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said on her first radio call-in show since the UCP won a majority government on May 29.
During the radio show Your Province Your Premier on 630 CHED and QR Calgary on Saturday, Smith was asked about the potential of reversing a decision to contract out publicly operated community lab services from Alberta Precision Laboratories to private company DynaLIFE.
Although Smith said Alberta Health Services was looking into the issue, she suggested changes if DynaLIFE couldn’t meet demand.
“If they don’t, then we can make other other arrangements to be able to bring in additional personnel to be able to make sure that we meet those expectations,” Smith said.
“I hope we don’t have to go to that level, but they need to … perform as we’ve expected them to.”
Smith’s comments have raised questions from health care advocates, who agree something must be done to address the long wait times for appointments and tests.
“We’re keen to hear more from the premier about what she means by those comments. They were very vague,” Friends of Medicare director Chris Gallaway told Global News.
“It feels like them just trying to, as they did before the election, kick it down the road in hopes that DynaLIFE finally is able to deliver to the service but so far, it’s been six months and we haven’t seen that come true.”
DynaLIFE had already provided lab services in Edmonton and several communities in the AHS North zone for more than 25 years, but the new contract in December saw the lab provider expand to more cities and towns like Calgary.
Since the transition last year, complaints have piled in from patients describing challenges in accessing services like blood tests.
Alberta Health Services (AHS), along with Alberta Precision Laboratories (APL) and DynaLIFE, said the organizations are working together to address concerns about wait times and quality of community lab services in the Calgary area.
“DynaLIFE, with support from AHS and APL, is taking action including actively recruiting additional staff and bringing in staff from other areas of the province and country to help in communities of high demand,” said a statement from the company to Global News.
The initiatives DynaLIFE cited to reduce wait times included expanding operations at several labs in the the Calgary area, and adding weekend service at existing locations, as well as the creation of new temporary locations.
DynaLIFEsaid it is also adding 1,450 appointments weekly to help cut down on long waits for service.
The company said clinics in northeast and northwest Calgary were set to open this month which would offer 180 daily appointments at each location, with an expansion site in South Calgary expected to open this fall.
However, some Calgarians like Jolene Maude have been able to get an appointment in short order despite the long wait times for blood work.
“All of the other clinics and available appointments were into July so it did look pretty long,” Maude told Global News on Monday. “I booked it this morning, I jumped online so there must’ve been a cancellation or something; right place right time.”
The province confirmed newly sworn-in Health Minister Adriana LaGrange is being briefed on the matter, and will be consulting with AHS to get a full understanding of the situation.
“As was indicated by Premier Smith, we are focused on improving our healthcare system and AHS has already made some changes to improve the services offered by DynaLIFE,” health ministry press secretary Scott Johnston said in a statement to Global News.
“If improvements aren’t made we’ll explore all options to ensure Albertans receive the services they want and need.”
On the staffing side of the issue, DynaLIFE has reached a tentative agreement with the Health Sciences Association of Alberta after months of negotiating a collective bargaining agreement.
The union’s member employed by DynaLIFE will now vote on the tentative agreement, with a decision expected to be announced at the end of the month.
Meanwhile, Gallaway said there are still questions that need to be answered, regarding the expectations for DynaLIFE’s performance, set out by the province.
“We don’t know what’s required as Albertans,” Gallway said. “We don’t know what the contract says, we don’t know what the out for that contract is if there are issues, how locked in are we, what are they supposed to be delivering? What are we on the hook for? We don’t know any of that.”
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