The United Conservative Party’s “Alberta Surgical Initiative” to outsource publicly funded surgeries to private facilities is an expensive flop that has diverted resources away from public hospitals and reduced provincial surgical capacity, says a damning report released this morning by the Parkland Institute.
The so-called surgical initiative, introduced in 2019 under then-premier Jason Kenney, continues to be touted by Premier Danielle Smith as a way to increase the province’s surgical capacity.
But data found by health researcher and political economist Andrew Longhurst through Freedom of Information requests and statistical analysis indicates the opposite is happening.
With the sole exception of cataract surgeries, the increase in for-profit surgical delivery generated by the ASI “has failed to improve wait times for all other kinds of surgical procedures,” Mr. Longhurst said. “Alberta has now among the worst performance in reducing wait times in Canada.”
Indeed, according to his report, Failing to Deliver, The Alberta Surgical Initiative and Declining Surgical Capacity, “surgical volumes data obtained through Freedom of Information requests reveal that the ASI is failing to meet its stated objectives. … The province’s total surgical activity declined in the first three years of the ASI.”
No surprise, since it was predicted by large numbers of experts, the study concludes that pouring public money into so-called “chartered” private surgical facilities (meaning, presumably, deemed worthy of being subsidized by public funds) has made the notorious staff shortages in Alberta Health Services hospitals worse and reduced the total number of surgeries performed in Alberta.
“There is a limited pool of specialized health care professionals,” Mr. Longhurst explained. “Outsourcing surgeries leads to competition between public and for-profit sectors for the same professionals.”
The declines in total provincial surgical capacity can’t be explained away by the pandemic, the report notes, since surgical activities in private facilities increased between 2018-19 and 2021-22.
Total provincial surgical volumes fell 6 per cent between 2018-19 and 2021-22, according to the latest data available. In the same time period, “public hospital surgical activity declined 12 per cent as the public sector faced reduced capacity and operating room funding.” Also in the same time period, surgeries in private facilities soared almost 50 per cent.
In 2022, Alberta had close to the worst performance for priority procedures in Canada, the report says. The trend from 2019 to 2022 indicates that wait times for hip and knee replacements “have worsened significantly, and more precipitously than the Canadian average.”
Since the start of ASI, the share of patients needing hip replacements meeting the Canadian Institute of Health Information benchmark for timely surgery plummeted to 38 per cent from 64 per cent, the report says. This compares to the Canadian average of 57 per cent. This was the second-largest decline among Canadian provinces.
Similarly, the share of knee replacement surgeries meeting the CIHI benchmark fell from 62 per cent to 27 per cent. The Canadian average is 50 per cent. This was the third-largest decline among Canadian provinces.
Looking back over a longer range, the report points out, since 2010-11, the three greatest reductions in hospital surgical volumes took place in the first three years of the ASI.
In addition to the competition for the few available skilled professionals, the report also suggests “chartered” surgical facilities will further destabilize the public system, already in a state of crisis, and create the potential for unlawful extra-billing.
Naturally, given the data uncovered by Mr. Longhurst, his report recommends “that the provincial government shift away from for-profit surgical delivery and fully commit to public system improvement.”
This, of course, is unlikely to happen as long as market fundamentalist ideologues dominate the provincial government.
One way for Danielle Smith’s Government to reduce surgical wait times would be to outsource them to private clinics AND make the patient pay full fare on all procedures and on aftercare.
Those who can not pay for these surgeries would simply be dropped off the ‘list’. Ineligible for surgery.
The stats would improve tremendously. The TBA contingent within the UCP would be thrilled. Danielle would remain an unsung hero of ‘freedom’ for these folks. Well, ‘freedom’ only for those that can afford it.
Past evidence supports Privatization does not work in both cost & services, yet this Government continues its course in destroying Public Healthcare. It’s been tried before many times and failed miserably.
The only “market fundamentals” in the Kon ideology are having a thumb on the scale and the privilege to wet one’s beak.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-politics-election-ucp-drugs-addiction-1.6844295
Can’t wait for our new Alberta Police officers to start petitioning “drug court” judges to order people into the US-style quackatoriums. Let the good times roll!
One way for the UCP to reduce surgical waiting periods …
Declare that all ailments can be cured with daily doses of special juice and Jesus.
That’s the way they do it in Florida.
If Dipstick Dani gets her way look forward to the UCP trying to figure out how to get the stars and stripes to fit on our flag somewhere. Sadly leaning towards US style pay to play health care, even though the results are clearly a failure.
And from TBA buckle bunny Cherokee Dans home town news …
https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/crisis-situation-high-river-physicians-warn-of-hospital-closures-as-staff-shortages-get-worse-1.6396757
Hi Brett,
Yup, that will work. Lived in the U S for 3 years in the 1990s, and saw how their system didn’t work.
One of my American cousins has been saying for years “ For God’s sake don’t let anyone destroy your Public Health Care System, trust me you don’t want ours.”
Yet here we are with these morons trying to force us into the American system, and their supporters aren’t smart enough to understand what it will do to us. I wonder why my B. C. relatives think we are the dumbest people in Canada? They have no problem kicking out politicians who don’t treat them properly, while Albertans constantly vote Conservative and don’t care what they do to us.
Oh my goodness! The parkland institute made some propaganda. Let’s regurgitate it!
I’m hoping this truth can be articulated in other ways besides “numbers-of-” (hip-replacements, knee-replacements, &c) so that the UCP’s disingenuousness and hypocrisy can be thoroughly embarrassed (naturally, before election day).
For example, the social cost—something social conservatives should be interested in—of a citizen who can’t afford plush private treatment and is thus forced to use the public system, which will, as the report shows, be beggared by the UCP’s private-hospital agenda, is a citizen who is more likely to be off-work, sick, and more likely to become—since tardy treatment tends to worsen the condition—unemployed longer than sick-leave benefits or unemployment insurance and savings can cover—even when espoused to an employed mortgage- or rent-payer— and more likely to drop out of the workforce altogether as a disabled, formerly employable person.
The prospect is real after the challenges of Covid and unavoidable post-pandemic price-inflation when people are already on the edge—and of course after public health services have already been significantly diminished by intentional (pig-headedly ideological) UCP policy (indeed, made worse during, of all things, a pandemic and, now, determined to make it evermore worse, still).
Now, articulate that in social-conservative terms—you know, “family values,” and all that. If the example citizen happens to be in a breadwinning partnership essential to the clothing and sheltering of children—a not uncommon situation—, the prospect of interrupted earning or, worse, permanent disability (because delayed treatment turned an acute but temporary illness into a chronic and permanent one) can tip the “natural family unit” over the edge: it might have to sell its house and find accommodation in the low-rent district—but probably still not low enough for the remaining wage-earner to cover the standard of food and clothing the family was accustomed to before cher partner fell ill, could not get timely, affordable medical treatment, and slowly became less and less employable. Children don’t do as well when they experience such disruptions in school and friendships, and such stress is known to risk marital dissolution. The knock-on burdens all of society by increasing the need for chronic or permanent medical treatment (avoidable had timely treatment been available), and social assistance for not only that single patient but cher whole family of three, four or five people—all at higher risk of bad outcomes, whether health, delinquency, or homelessness. You know: “family values” that SoCons are always banging on about.
(It’s all too rhetorical, I guess, to remind that promoting the incidence of single-parent families by privatizing public healthcare while browbeating about the sanctity of matrimony and the supposed “sin” of family planning, the UCP is looking pretty hypocritical, if not fiscally and politically inept.)
Anybody of any stripe can get sick, but it’s certain that some of those who do under the UCP’s retrogressive healthcare policy will be the very Christian families it idealizes —yet families and their natural values of partnership and child-rearing are the most vulnerable. The senior citizen—which stats show is more likely to be a UCP supporter— has cher pension and maybe an almost- or completely amortized mortgage, yet even when delayed treatment (if chi can’t afford the gold-plated private clinic) makes that citizen more of a burden on public coffers, chi’s still one individual (each senior receives a public pension at very least, and the kids are grown and gone) and, naturally, cher condition is limited by longevity—although usually requiring very expensive treatment (more so if repeatedly stop-gapped and binder-twined); young adult citizens without kids can go to where the work is at or get a student loan that affords at least an illegal basement suite. But it’s very hard on families with kids when a single roll of bad luck rocks the security and safety of home.
Young voters tend to be less supportive of right-wing parties for a number of reasons, so maybe it’s not so important to the UCP that the smart ones survey the social landscape in Alberta and prepare to to find a living elsewhere. Alls I know about senior Albertans, rich or poor, in sickness and in health, is that a lot of them come out here to the West Coast to retire and enjoy the relatively quiet respite from ultra-ideological, far-right claptrap back home (apparently they don’t mind voting NDP—at both levels—, either, which might actually be considered a plus from a UCP point of view). But the family, that saintly, genesistic middle-class the UCP pays preachy lip-service to would be smart not to risk the considerable investment and effort of raising itself, its kids, its retirement, and its industry by acquiescing to a single bad roll of the dice in Danielle Smith’s Alberta. It never ceases to amaze me that the UCP really doesn’t know where those golden eggs come from—or where they roll to.
I know it’s hard for a young family to up and move—like many probably will if the UCP wins in just less than a fortnight—but at least a healthy family can manage some hard work to get it done, knowing that its prospects are much better elsewhere where, hey, healthcare is healthier. Or, if they like Alberta—which I always found a wonderful province too work and live in (well, at least back before the deKlein began)—they can make it less hard and risky by voting for the NDP.
I mean, really, the only big difference between the frontrunners with respect public healthcare is that the NDP intends to respect pubic healthcare. Each party having had one term apiece, back-to-back, the smart family will simply compare.
And you SoCons—c’mon, people, “family values,” remember?
Another day, another con job by Premier Danielle Smith and the UCP lackeys.
When I was diagnosed with cancer, my doctor/oncologist requested an MRI to find out if the cancer was local, or, had spread to other organs.
In Calgary, the MRI technician at South Campus showed me a short video of the procedure. Then I started to ask questions. Because I was terrified.
Terrified.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging, MRI, tells a lot about the human body without the poking and prodding. Just loud noise, really loud.
The patient, in this case me, is placed face up onto a flat slim surface. The patient is glided slowly into a 3 or so meter long cylindrical machine.
Did I say MRI’s are loud?
With the noise cancelling headphones on, I listened to the MRI technicians in their soundproof booth. The MRI technicians were in a clear glass booth that was a little above the high ceiling room I was in. I could see them through the glass window before I slid into the machine.
The MRI technicians tell the patient, through the headphones, to breathe deep and hold. Or exhale and hold. They do this to obtain the best imaging the MRI machine can get.
My cancer was abdominal, the MRI lasted about 15-20 minutes. It was “take a deep breath, hold for 20 seconds”, then “okay exhale” for a time.
“you okay?” “let’s go again” “do you need a break” “no , okay let’s go”
“are you sure you’re okay” Over and over again.
The MRI techs are technical professionals. They need to obtain the magnetic image to provide to the doctor, who would provide to my oncologist/cancer doctor.
Recently, I received a little lapel pin with a white rainbow on it.
It was given to me by the surgeon who operated on my cancer. I had a carcinomatous and sarcinomatous hybrid type of cancer with a high chance of survival, if diagnosed early and no spread.
About 85-98% chance of being dead without.
Please.
See a physician. Please, they want to help you.
Don’t be the tough person.
Be the person your kids depend on. Be a little unsure, you can bet they’re more unsure than you are.
Fuck your weird backwoods relatives. And I say that from a lovin’ place where
American style healthcare in Alberta will be a disaster. Danielle Smith is so oblivious to that fact.
As a Canadian you are lead to believe that when you need health care, you will be able to access it. Unfortunately, this is not true. About 50% of surgeries in Alberta are being performed within clinically recommended timelines. That means 50% are not. We hear a lot about delays in hip and knee replacement surgeries. But what about life saving surgeries to treat cancer? How many of these surgeries are being performed outside of clinically recommended timelines, where a delay in treatment can impact a patient’s prognosis? I can tell you from personal experience that we waited 12 weeks for a surgery that should have been done with 4 weeks. That delay is enough for cancer to metastasize, and can mean the difference between life and death. As Albertans, we should be very concerned with the state of our health care system, and not come to the realization that it is broken when we need care.
Its true, not all people get their treatments within the prescribed time limits. However, they do get them and that is the differance between a public and private system. If its private and you don’t have money you don’t get anything.
Waiting for hip/knee replacements is painful, but you do get them done and you don’t have to sell the house.
Broke my leg. Off to hospital on Vancouver Island, x-rays and the next morning into surgery. One week later as covid hit Vancouver Island, discharged and went home. Didn’t cost me anything.
Friend’s child had an accident while playing sports in Arizona. Went to hospital, checked over, x ray–parent out over $1100.
Average price of having a child in the U.S.A., $18,000. B.C. free and that includes pre natal care.
The U.S.A. spends more on health care but less people get the care.
If that is what Albertans want, good luck to them.
In B.C. we have back logs for radiation treatment for breast and prostate cancer. The provincial government, NDP will be sending people to Bellingham, picking up the tab, including transportation, incidentals, the whole nine yards. Of course B.C.’s version of the UCP is carrying on like its the end of the world. For those on the lower mainland going to Bellingham is what a lot of them do to buy butter and milk, oh and gas. If you live in the northern part of B.C. you have to travel to Kelowna or Vancouver for cancer treatments. If you live on Vancouver Island, you go to Victoria, so going to Bellingham is a way shorter commute. The NDP has contracted with two cancer clinics in Bellingham and they’ll be able to handle 50 patients a week for two years. So that works out to about 4800 according to the news here.
Kang: keep in mind your personal delay was the result of the UCP making war on doctors and nurses during a public health emergency. All patients are triaged, and the most needy get pushed to the front. After thirty years of Con/UCP cutbacks, we are fortunate to have such dedicated medical staff. To provide a positive counter example, three weeks ago a personal friend noticed bleeding where blood should not be. Tomorrow they go in for exploratory surgery.
The Cons always have welfare money for oil companies but not for hospitals, schools, and medical staff. The UCP even paid money to destroy the new AHS medical laboratory.
I ought to have added that in publicly funded and operated health care all patients are triaged on the basis of medical need. In a privately operated facility patients are triaged on the basis of profit for the facility. Complex, high needs patients are not necessarily first in line, unless the public system undertakes to clean up any mistakes or the patient puts down a lot of their own money.
This is the UCP record, so even if you accept Smith’s pleas to ignore all her musings about private health care and just focus on actions, this is not good.
What is even worse is the comparison with other provinces during the times of Smith and Kenney. Yes, the last few years have been challenging for health care everywhere, but Alberta seems to have fared particularly poorly.
So there does not seem to be much evidence of the happy days are here again type of talk that Smith likes to try put out. Health care is an issue in this election not just because of all of Smith’s musings, but because as this shows the UCP’s plans have actually made things worse.
A few years back a conservative government privatized alberta’s power. How’s that workin’ out for us?