Past and recent efforts to privatize Alberta's health care system have neither lowered costs, nor improved access to care for Albertans, says Friends of Medicare.
A new report Public Funds for Private Profit: The Evolution of Health Care Privatization in Alberta, commissioned by Friends of Medicare, outlines privatization efforts of Alberta’s health care system by successive provincial governments since the 1990s.
“Our public health care system has been systematically underfunded and underresourced to the point that it’s struggling to provide the care that Albertans need or deserve. But instead of working to ensure quality, timely public health care is accessible to all Albertans, our governments have continually handed their responsibility off to private operators, and tried to convince us that privatization is the only solution,” said Chris Gallaway, executive director of Friends of Medicare, in a statement.
“Not only have we repeatedly subsidized private profits with our public health care dollars, but when these operators fail to turn a profit, it is always the public system left holding the bag.”
The report looks at the privatization ventures Health Resource Centre (HRC) to provide knee and hip surgery, DynaLIFE laboratory services, and the Alberta Surgical Initiative (ASI) to increase surgical capacity.
"The examples of HRC and the ASI bring out that despite performing the least complicated of surgeries, the costs of the same procedures are higher in for-profit surgical facilities than in public hospitals — sometimes to the tune of two and three times more," said the report by Salimah Valiani.
"The instances of DynaLIFE and HRC demonstrate the perils of public health-sector dependency on private service providers. When the private service providers in question face insolvency or bankruptcy, the burden of rescue ultimately falls on the public at large."
Meanwhile, a third-party investigation is currently underway into procurement and contracting processes used by the province and Alberta Health Services as a result of a lawsuit filed by former head of AHS Athana Mentzelopoulos who claimed she was wrongfully dismissed for looking into questionable contracts.
Friends of Medicare said efforts to privatize the health care system have continued with the passing of the Health Statutes Amendment Act in May, which allows the government to choose for-profit providers for public hospitals.
“We can rebuild our public health care to ensure equity and accessibility, but we need our government to learn from Alberta’s long history of failed health care privatization and finally start putting patients ahead of profits and getting serious about a health care capacity and workforce plan,” Gallaway said.
A statement from the Office of the Minister of Primary and Preventative Health Services Adriana LaGrange called Friends of Medicare's "so-called report" a collection of false claims.
"In this 'report' they go on to falsely claim our health system is underfunded, when in reality, it’s been funded at a much higher rate than the Canadian average for decades, including in Budget 2025. They also cite false claims that surgery volumes are lower than before the pandemic…when the 2024-25 total was the highest ever in our province," the office said.
"Albertans want a sustainable publicly funded health system that gives patients faster access to the care they need, and that’s what we’re working to deliver now, and long into the future. We're funding more surgeries than ever, with even more doctors and nurses than ever. And we'll keep adding more because that's what Albertans want and need."
