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By Blair Braitenbach
Staff reporter
According to opposition parties, the Province’s health care action plan announced last week is too vague and leaves the system open to privatization.
On April 15, Alberta Health and Wellness Minister Ron Liepert announced the Province’s plan aimed at system reform and ways to streamline health care processes. Particularly concerning to opposition parties is the Conservatives’ plan to build on the Mazankowski report from 2001. The report recommends rethinking Medicare and instituting private health care services for certain procedures.
Brian Mason, Alberta NDP leader and Edmonton Highlands-Norwood MLA, said Liepert and the PC Party are sweeping privatization issues under the rug with increasing private health care delivery, more user fees and the de-listing of services covered by Medicare.
“Those three directions are all contrary to the expressed wishes of the people of this province,” Mason said.
“I have a real concern with where the minister is going in terms of the so-called plan he rolled out this week… I don’t trust the Conservatives on health care because they are being pressured by big insurance and drug companies to bring in private health care delivery.”
Mason added he believes the plan doesn’t deal with the issue of long wait times for surgeries and emergency rooms and the shortage of family physicians in the province.
The Tories argued the plan will build a better health care system and make it more accessible to Albertans, with the proposed expansion of the role of pharmacists in preventing and managing chronic diseases as well as expanding addiction and mental health services.
“We’ve set out an ambitious plan to make the necessary decisions and changes to build a better health care system that will be there for people when they need it,” said Liepert in a prepared statement.
Calgary-Varsity Liberal MLA Harry Chase pointed to Liepert’s approval of the Copeman Healthcare Centre in Calgary where users will have to pay a roughly $4,000 fee for the first year and nearly $3,000 every year after to access their services. The Copeman centre is a private medical clinic that boasts on its website “world-class screening and disease prevention programs that are combined with the general care of physicians to provide people with a complete healthcare service.”
Liepert argued the clinic would not contravene the Canada Health Act as patients are not charged for medically necessary services. Chase, however, said allowing such clinics to exist in Alberta will lead the province down a slippery slope of health care privatization and is possibly a tell-tale sign of what the Conservatives have in store for the province.
“Basically, the size of your wallet determines whether or not you can access this supposed higher level of service,” Chase said in regards to the Copeman clinic.
“There’s only a set number of doctors, nurses and medical professionals. If they’re being subverted into a private, for-profit system, they’re not available at that time for the public.”
Opposition parties are taking a “wait and see” attitude towards specific health care initiatives that will be announced in three phases over a nine-month period – the first announcement by June 15, the second by Sept. 15 and the third by Dec. 15. Funding and legislative changes for the plan’s
initiatives will be outlined in the 2009/2010 provincial budget and the 2009 spring session of the Alberta Legislative Assembly.
“The obvious problem is the lack of details. It continues to be a plan for a plan for a plan,” said Chase.
One of the biggest and most immediate action items that will be announced by June 15 is the decision on a new governance model for regional health authorities and health boards. A decision will also be made on managing ground emergency medical services.
“How is (the system) organized right now and is there possibly a better way we can do it that will lend itself to some of these other initiatives in a more efficient way?” said Alberta Health and Wellness spokesperson Howard May.
“In (the minister’s) news conference, he said everything is on the table. That means we’re looking at things from the ground up.”
Last year Alberta’s health care system cost the province $12.1 billion – about 40 per cent of the entire provincial budget.
“We’re talking about a more efficient and effective system. The minister also said that having a double digit percentage increase year after year in the health care budget and having health regions continuously struggling and running deficits, those two things are not sustainable,” May said.
Both Mason and Chase agreed that the government cannot continue with the status quo, however, Chase said he is concerned there will be too much centralization of power in the health care department.
“From a Liberal perspective, we don’t believe centralization is a positive move as it takes away from local autonomy and local authority,” Chase said.
Alberta Union of Provincial Employees president Doug Knight said he is concerned a restructuring of health authorities could affect the current round of health care negotiations.
“We’re in bargaining with a good chunk of our health care workers in the province right now, and it all depends what stage we are in the bargaining process as to how (the restructuring) affects us,” Knight said.
Other initiatives outlined in the Conservative health care plan include: mandatory accreditation and reporting for all Alberta health service providers; addressing workforce-related issues and support for continuing care; improving access to health care services, particularly in rural areas; the promotion of healthy eating and lifestyles; and establishing a bulk-buy policy for equipment, drugs and supplies to be implemented province-wide and develop a strategy for all western provinces.
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