With its latest medical lab privatization scheme in a shambles, Premier Danielle Smith’s market-fundamentalist government has turned to the public sector in a desperate bid to keep the system from collapsing in Calgary, Alberta’s largest city.
Or, to put it more colourfully, as did a former NDP-era deputy minister on social media Thursday, “Alberta government opts for socialist medicine model to bail out lab privatization fiasco as enraged UCP supporters inundate Premier Bozo with year-long lab waits!”
Naturally, this is not the way the government phrased its response to the predicament in which it has placed itself – and thousands of innocent Albertans.
“To improve access to lab testing, Alberta Health Services and DynaLife have made the joint decision to allow Alberta Precision Laboratories to offer more community lab appointments,” the government said in its news release on Thursday.
Allow? Ordered, more like!
“APL already handles lab work in all hospitals and urgent care centres in the province and offers community lab services in rural areas,” the release blandly continued.
That misses a big part of the story, of course. DynaLife Medical Labs is a private company that has provided medical lab tests in Edmonton and other parts of central and northern Alberta capably enough for many years. Alberta Precision Laboratories is a wholly owned subsidiary of Alberta Health Services, which handled the job very well in Calgary and southern Alberta for years.
Last December, the UCP government – which wants to privatize as much of the health care system as it can get away with as quickly as possible – announced that DynaLife would take over for APL in Calgary and the province’s south. The government claimed the privatization deal would improve service and save a piddling $18 million.
The result has been a catastrophe, with patients needing blood tests facing extremely long delays for services public employees used to deliver swiftly.
By last week, the heat on the government to restore proper services in Calgary had become so great that the government had to go to APL to get its employees to pick up the slack for their faltering private successor.
Colourful canned quotes attributed to Premier Smith and Health Minister Adriana LaGrange in the government press release appear to be intended to give the impression of Churchillian resolve in the face of an implacable foe, never mind that the government itself has caused the problem.
“It is unacceptable that Albertans are facing constant delays to get a simple test or blood work done,” reads the premier’s quote. “Lab tests are a critical part of a patient’s health care journey from diagnosis to treatment, and Albertans must be able to access them when and where they need them. That’s why we have directed Alberta Health Services to make changes right now.”
Ms. LaGrange struck a similar note. “I was given clear direction by the Premier to resolve the lab service delays. Today is an important step forward with an immediate infusion of new appointments and hundreds more to come over the next few weeks.”
Mike Parker, president of the Health Sciences Association of Alberta, which represents APL lab professionals, responded, explaining that “the government’s decision to bring in support from our publicly administered laboratory system to correct the failures of a for-profit system will only provide short-term support.”
“Without a sustained investment to strengthen the public system to address the gaps caused by for-profit laboratory services, the crisis will worsen as staff burnout spreads,” Mr. Parker said.
“When the government announced the DynaLife contract, it promised vague cost savings while somehow also expanding access and improving the quality of lab services,” he continued. “When we raised concern about how for-profit care would impact patients and our members, it was dismissed by the government.”
The result: “Delayed cancer treatments, kids getting sick while waiting on tests, and all of the anguish people are going through just to access testing could have been avoided by keeping the public system intact.”
“The only lasting solution is a fully publicly funded and administered laboratory system, which the cancelled modern public lab would have provided,” Mr. Parker said – a reference to Jason Kenney’s order soon after he was sworn in as premier in 2019 to immediately abandon construction of the provincial medical super-lab already started by the NDP.
Within days, work already completed on the public facility in Edmonton that would have served Alberta’s medical testing needs for a generation had been bulldozed in the name of the UCP’s privatization cargo cult.
NDP Health Critic Luanne Metz, a physician, called the latest medical lab privatization fiasco “all the proof Albertans need that the UCP plan for lab services has completely failed.”
The government’s news release went into detail about how APL employees will be providing appointments immediately at several Calgary locations, with plans to add 7,500 appointments a week in the Calgary area.
This will require recruiting more APL staff, hiring third-party contractors, and opening a new community patient service centre in southeast Calgary.
That will not be easy. This crisis comes at a time when medical laboratory services providers across Canada are experiencing a staffing crisis, just as is the case in other medical professions, such as nurses and physicians.
So you can count on it that this is going to cost a lot more than the $18-million the DynaLife takeover was supposed to save.
“Smith and LaGrange owe the people of Alberta an apology for their role in creating this crisis and a real and honest accounting for how much Albertans are paying to cover for DynaLife’s failures,” Dr. Metz said.
Don’t count on that ever happening.
Danielle Smith and the UCP are just following in the footsteps of their hero, Ralph Klein. Ralph Klein created so many problems with his cuts to the public healthcare system in Alberta, which we still have never recovered from. These cuts put a lot of people out of work, such as nurses, and many weren’t able to return to that profession, and had to retire early, while others were forced to relocate, against their will. Hospitals were so badly maintained, and weren’t given the proper equipment that was needed to help them function properly. Other hospitals were demolished. There were people who lost their lives, or nearly lost their lives, because of what Ralph Klein did. I’m sure there were lawsuits related to this, but we will never know what the compensation was, because the settlements were kept secret. Ralph Klein had the ultimate goal of private for profit healthcare in Alberta. I can see where the UCP is going with the public healthcare system in Alberta. Cuts, negligence on the Covid-19 pandemic file, so hospitals get overwhelmed, laying blame elsewhere, massive layoffs, creating a state of disorder, just so they can also get private for profit healthcare fast tracked in Alberta. How many people will be forced to sue the UCP, because the UCP’s policies on the Covid-19 pandemic front, and their bad healthcare policies, which endangered people’s lives? It’s just baffling how people gave the UCP a second term. I recall a person saying they were asked to join the Wildrose party, and become an MLA. They weren’t really interested in becoming a politician, but the problems the Alberta PCs were causing, was certainly an issue, and they had known this for quite some time. As soon as this person heard Danielle Smith give accolades to Ralph Klein, they wisely declined. They knew the damage Ralph Klein had done, and didn’t want to go down that route again, under Danielle Smith. What I also remember hearing, is that Ralph Klein’s own family was doubtful of his own political aspirations, from the beginning, and even his own daughter, didn’t vote for the Alberta PCs in 2015, but chose to vote for the NDP. Also, someone had mentioned that Don Getty told them that he also had regrets in accepting Ralph Klein into his party. This same individual had said that Peter Lougheed never appeared with Ralph Klein at public events, because he was not very happy with what he was doing. It definitely will be another long four years, under the UCP.
How ironic. Government lab gets the boot due to guv’mint interference in favour of a for-profit company. For-profit company can’t handle the load, screws up from Day 1 (“Welcome to private health care”–quote attributed to anonymous staffer at newly privatized lab overwhelmed by what was a normal workload for APL the day before.)
Now, after admitting defeat, for-profit company is bailed out by government lab–on orders of the government that screwed up in the first place.
I wonder how many trained lab staff will jump from Dynalife to APL (back to APL, I don’t doubt) when the hiring campaign starts?
Even the formation of “Alberta Precision Laboratories” — APL — out of the lab services portfolio of Alberta Health Services made no sense. All it does is create an unnecessary corporate infrastructure overlaying the clinical lab services that all AHS providers and facilities depend on.
Having it a “wholly owned subsidiary” of AHS adds nothing to quality, efficiency or responsiveness. All it did was change every lab staffer’s e-mail address and payroll information. Why? To what end?
Hi jerrymacgp. What you describe for APL happened more than once to the Alberta Research Council. ARC has been reorganized, renamed, re-orged again, sorta-privatized, re-publicated, amalgamated, and spun off. ARC used to be the #1 prestige posting for Old Tory insiders (getting appointed to the ARC board of directors was a big deal, back when oil booms were caused by oil, not bitumen-plant construction). In the ‘90s we had an international reputation as a first-class industrial research facility.
Now? It’s called InnoTech Alberta, and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alberta Innovates (the management of which seems reluctant to acknowledge InnoTech’s existence). Two decades of being jerked around by different governments—including Rachel Notley’s—nearly destroyed the place. When I quit, we were convinced InnoTech was an unwanted appendage of Alberta Innovates, misunderstood and unappreciated by the New & Improved management team.
So I’m not surprised APL was kind-of spun off from Alberta Health Services. Some corporate lawyer probably convinced the Minister of Health or whatever that the guv’mint shouldn’t directly own a medical lab that competes with a for-profit company. It’s SO MUCH BETTER to stick another layer of bureaucracy between the paymaster and the people doing the real work. We thought that’s why the Alberta Research Council first got agglomerated with all the other research (and funding, oh yes including funding!) agencies—and then got split off and cast aside. It just looks bad when the guv’mint is paying itself to do industrial research that could be done by private labs. Never mind that the funding model had worked just fine for over 80 years by then.
The uncontrollable impulse to mess with government agencies and departments seems to be an occupational hazard—or maybe disease—of elected office.
For all those individuals with the time and the interest, there is a great deal of additional background information to be found in the following analysis; which, would make for fine long weekend holiday reading:
https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/parklandinstitute/pages/1964/attachments/original/1643492118/parkland-report-misdiagnosis-privatization-disruption-in-alberta-medical-laboratory-services.pdf?1643492118
Such as the usual conclusions based on the available evidence of “Who Benefits From Privatization” (Page 22):
“As explored below, the political and financial webs of influence surrounding the lab services contract are complex, but follow a clear path to conservative political organizations.”
“The RFP process generated a lot of work for lobbyists. Those with ties to conservative politicians, including Premier Jason Kenney and former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, played a particularly prominent role in the process of contracting out laboratory services.”
“These linkages not only paint a picture of political patronage and cronyism but, more worryingly, highlight the agenda that is underwriting lab privatization. DynaLIFE is a member of the Alberta Enterprise Group (AEG), which was founded in 2006 to intervene financially in the Progressive Conservative leadership race (which was won on the second ballot by Ed Stelmach). AEG has been a vocal opponent of public spending in Alberta and has called for fiscal restraint and lower corporate taxes. As of April 2021, AEG is headed by former Wildrose Party leader Danielle Smith.”
“In 2021, the Business Council of Alberta (another political action committee of which DynaLIFE is a member) launched its Define the Decade “taskforce” featuring ATCO’s Nancy Southern and Coril Holdings’ Ron Mannix on the Board of Directors. While the Business Council of Alberta and Alberta Enterprise Group both claim to be “non-partisan,” the donation records of their most prominent members suggest that is not an accurate description of their objectives and activities.”
Big surprise.
This needs to be shared with the public not just comment readers.
The leopards-eating-our-faces are crooked and criminal? Colour me NOT surprised.
A boondoggle within a boondoggle disguised as a boondoggle.
Every day another fiasco. Killing jobs with their backward-thinking anti-renewable energy moratorium. Killing Albertans with ridiculous delays in lab tests that undermine the whole idea of preventive medicine and early intervention. All of this is completely unnecessary chaos created by the UCP and their strangely no longer libertarian ideology that combines interference in the market with privatization of public resources and further interference to rescue private industry with public money when their wild schemes turn into disaster. It all boils down to killing Albertans one way or the other, as we have no time to spare with the climate crisis.
Who voted for these incompetents anyways? Oh right, rural Albertans with their double-weighted representation. Take Back Alberta, taking us all back to the stone age in their sinking ship of stupidity, with Captain Dani at the helm. Head for the reef!
Everything Alberta’s TBA government touches dies.
DynaLife is wholly owned by a US-based hedge fund. A public inquiry if not a criminal investigation needs to be started. The decision by the UCP (Smith) was not motivated by public interest. Therefore, another motivating factor was at play. Can you guess what it likely was?
Every party has its own ideology. Most voters who are not overly partisan tune a lot of it out. However, the most dangerous thing is when a party, any party, puts its ideology ahead of competence.
I get the feeling this what the UCP is doing here. At one time not so long ago lab services were running fairly smoothly in Calgary. The sensible thing would have been to leave it well enough alone and if there were some specific issues, just focus on fixing them. But some politicians love to meddle with health care and when they make it worse then claim it is proof the system is “broken”.
No, they will not get off easy for this. Calgary voters were uneasy with the UCP, but enough stuck with them. If the party starts messing with health care too much for ideological reasons, some of those who gave the UCP the benefit of the doubt will start to doubt the benefit of keeping them in power.
Sometimes new leaders rejuvenate troubled and tired parties. Sometimes they just flail and fail.
Hello DJC and fellow commenters,
As DJC mentions, “… Alberta Health Services and DynaLife have made the joint decision to allow Alberta Precision Laboratories to offer more community lab appointments, ….” I find the word “allow” a very peculiar choice of words.
First, it sounds very noble to “allow” the public service to return to doing what they have done well for a long time.
Second, why, exactly, is Dynalife involved in the decision to “allow” Precision Labs to return to doing what they used to do? Has the Alberta government completely given over to Dynalife the control of lab testing in the areas for which it is doing the testing? I read that the majority of labs were operated by the publicly-owned Precision Labs prior to the recent change to Dynalife.
Did the Alberta government turn over equipment, supplies etc. from Precision Labs to Dynalife? If so, did Dynalife pay its actual value?
Did Dynalife operate in the same physical locations that Precision used to use? I would guess that they did. If so, is Dynalife still in possession of the space? Where will Precision be offering the lab tests? Is Dynalife continuing to do some of the lab testing?
There is nothing to stop the Alberta government from returning to having some or all lab testing done by Dynalife later. If that is done, it probably would be done very quietly.
As far as I know, although there may be new developments, the issue of pensions is still outstanding. Dynalife agreed to provide pensions for staff but, once they took, over Dynalife refused to fund the pensions. I think that the ?Alberta Labour Relations Board? ordered Dynalife to fund the pensions. Did they? What about pension contributions between the time that Dynalife took over the the ALRB decision? Can/is the ALRB decision being appealed? Who will pay the unpaid pension contributions?
Thanks alkyl for the link. I will look it up. Also for mentioning Danielle Smith’s involvement in AEG.
This is where the UCP idea of private-clinic membership fees fits in. Join a private clinic and you can jump to the front of the line. Problem solved!
Vide, felix culpa.
Now we can tell all our UCP voting neighbours that we were right, the UCP are useless, inept, and evil at governanace.
But will they remember the lesson when it is next their time to vote? Of course not.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Alberta voters should have been forewarned about the inevitability of the UCP’s overt promise to kill off public healthcare in the province: for one thing, its attempt to kill off epidemiological coordination during Covid managed to kill off more citizens than would have died otherwise—and that was only a vignette of the larger theatre of general healthcare. Presumably killing off universal public healthcare would mean killing off more citizens than would die otherwise—and, over the long term, many, many more than Covid ever could. It’s as if voters either didn’t know about the UCP’s plan or didn’t believe what warnings about it were propagated during the 2023 election last May. Why not?
Blind faith is characteristic of UCP supporters—at least the Take Back Alberta half which controls the party—such that reasoned criticism of its plan to turn out the lights on public enterprise fell on proudly stopped ears. However, waiting until after the election to shop and compare must be disappointing to those who blithely believed whatever the UCP had in mind would be alright—especially, one should think, if they need these now-bobbled medical services in an urgent way—which is often the case in the real world of healthcare.
But even thinking people have been dulled by the increasingly prevalent phenomenon of hyperbolic partisan rhetoric wherein even if warnings about extremely bad outcomes of a certain policy chosen are true and accurate, they are assumed to be counter-hyperbole so exaggerated that they’re not worth weighing. Perhaps it explains why the NDP opted to focus more on Danielle Smith’s ample number of personal foibles (like hubristic, unabashed, scatter-brained disingenuousness) instead of presenting a detailed list of reasons how her policies are bad, as accurate as they would have been: ‘Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they…’
With the next scheduled election almost four years distant it’s hard to say how much of the post-election pudding will be proof-tasted or how long that taste will linger. Meanwhile it’s assured that the UCP will double-down on double-talk and dys-information as its loopy policies fall prey, one by one, to its peculiar brand of idiocy. Having had their three strikes—that is, their three opportunities to put Alberta to rights since 2015–Albertans will have to persevere as if nothing has really changed.
How did the CPC change when Loyal Opposition Leader Thomas Mulcair held its front bench to account with courtroom precision? Well, the HarperCons lost power, but did they take a lesson? (Fourth CPC leader O’Toole might have, but he couldn’t teach it and the CPC opposition’s front bench simply maintains the same nasty and smug demeanour as it did while in power. Perhaps because they got power by default and never having to work for it the lesson is perennially lost on them.) Likewise, did Smith’s UCP take a lesson from its reduced majority and near-loss (only a few thousand Calgary votes saved it) on May 29? It sure don’t look like it, do it?
One can only hope that if there are a few more UCP voters who regret their choice because of the government’s early-inning errors then the UCP’s partisan hyperbole —which is only encouraged in the circumstance— can somehow be countered by patient, rational debunking by the NDP Opposition, and that UCP hyperbole won’t make the NDP look as loopy by rebutting in detail.
Unfortunately, when the lunatics have taken over the asylum, stinging embarrassment is more likely to provoke puerile spite than constructive contrition. It’s an unpleasant thought that Smith’s policies are so goofy that rationality will have to earn its political accolades by continually coming to the rescue and binder-twining what can be salvaged of her party’s messes. Anyway: TBA will reliably say good people only helped in order to make the UCP look bad.
That is, that there is no such thing as political discourse or truth. Perhaps the only way through this pickle is for voters to be so viscerally hurt by the UCP that they’ll defeat it next time. Still, you’d think Covid would have already taught that lesson.
Same thing is happening in Edmonton in histology. Dynalife can’t get there work done, they were supposed to take over the U of A hospital work, this keeps getting delayed because they are behind. The public lab at U of A is doing their work and the public employees are being paid millions in overtime. Saving money ? Not by my math.
Hello alkyl,
The report by the Parkland Institute at the University of Alberta on privatization of lab services in southern Alberta, is comprehensive. The section on who benefits is interesting.
Ernst and Young almost certainly exaggerated the financial benefits of the privatization. The report is clear on Dynalife’s emphasis on profit at the expense of quality and accuracy of lab services. Privatization profits come, in part, at the expense of employee pay and benefits and the hiring of staff with lower education qualifications. Dynalife will take on the easy and less expensive tasks and leave the more complex and expensive ones to government.
From what I have seen, pro-privatization, Fraser Institute-type organizations later use the cost differences to claim, inaccurately, that government-provided services are more expensive. However, they omit the fact that governments provide the more complex, and correspondingly more expensive, services. Privatization of public services is a racket.
Of course, Danielle Smith and the UCP, being the most hardcore of disaster capitalists imaginable, will fast-track lab techs. You got that right … move a lot of technicians through a 30 day program with guaranteed certification and the problem will be solved.
Yes. Throw lots and lots of warm and breathing bodies into the thick of any problem and then deny there ever was a problem in the first place. Then, if all else should fail, claim victory. Yes, you won because you were the first to say you won.
I can’t wait for the Leprosy outbreak in Alberta. Alberta? Why, yes. With the UCP fetishising DeSantis’ Florida, may as well want the Leprosy as well.
Once again, another instance of privatize the profits, socialize the cleanup.
It’s too bad the UCP have to rely on the public service to bail them out of the mess they created. Would it be novel if they did nothing and Calgarians could get a really good taste of what they bargained for by voting in the UCP? Funny this all started before the election and they were stupid enough to believe in the UCP to fix this. In my view it goes back to the old days where Calgarians voted in Ralph Klein (Calgary) versus Lawrence Decore (Edmonton) and the mess that followed that. It seems that Calgarians can’t get past voting for their southern leader no matter bad they are.
50,ooo,000 flushed down the toilet by the UCP. That’s what it cost to cancel the lab. Likely more, but I’m being kind to the dim bulbs my family refer to as neighbours! Our host is doing journalism! No one else seems to. A song for David! https://youtu.be/9wF7zc_YK6A?t=2