By THE CANADIAN PRESS
CALGARY — Alberta’s Wildrose party says private health clinics are part of the prescription to ease pressures on waiting lists, turning up the heat on a debate that seems to constantly simmer in the province.
Leader Danielle Smith says if her party is elected April 23, patients that find themselves stuck on waiting lists longer than accepted benchmarks will be able to go to a private clinic and have their care paid for by the government at the public-system rate.
“We will deliver on this guarantee by ensuring if Alberta’s public hospitals cannot meet these benchmarks, Alberta health insurance will pay to have the procedures performed at independent facilities either inside or outside the province,” Smith told reporters Thursday.
She said that includes possibly using the U.S. medical system, but she noted that Alberta will not pay anything above the going rate in the Canadian system.
Smith said despite unprecedented levels of government funding, Alberta’s health-care system is failing families and seniors. She pegs the cost of the private procedures at an extra $180 million a year.
“Our public health system will be strengthened by introducing choice and competition, empowering local hospitals to make decisions, and putting an end to the queue jumping and bureaucratic paralysis,” she said.
Smith’s chief rival, Progressive Conservative Leader Alison Redford, was also talking health care ahead of Easter weekend.
Redford is pledging a “fast-track” system for emergency rooms that will see patients with easily identifiable injuries, such as broken bones and burns, put through a faster screening processes.
“It’s not about more money. It’s about doing things differently. If we’re looking at a facility that already exists, our estimation is it could cost up to $2.5 million to renovate in order to allow this to happen,” Redford said.
Dr. Avalon Roberts, a Calgary psychiatrist on the board of the lobby group Friends of Medicare, had a blunt assessment of both announcements.
“You have to understand that a lot of this is vacuous election promises. People are saying things to get the vote, period,” she said.
Roberts was particularly critical of the Wildrose plan to turn private health facilities and pointed out that re-igniting the debate over private health care has failed before.
“It’s like a zombie. It keeps coming back and back. You have to understand there are extremely powerful forces behind this, called insurance companies. You will have to buy private insurance, of course,” she said.
The idea of fast-track emergency rooms is nothing new, said Roberts, and has been around in some form for decades.
“This is an old idea. You can’t do it if you don’t have the staff or the space to do it in,” Roberts said.
“The one thing I agree with Danielle Smith on is that this government has done a terrible job, but I’m not sure going from the right to the further right is going to help anything.”
Alberta Liberal Leader Raj Sherman sarcastically congratulated Redford for suggesting that patients be seen based on need.
“Fantastic idea,” said Sherman, an emergency room doctor. “Why didn’t we think of it earlier? We need to come up with a name for this. Why don’t we call it triage?”