Why is Alberta turning public hospitals over to a Catholic provider?

in today’s The Big Story podcast, last month, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith told a United Conservative Party town hall that the government had transferred control of a northern Alberta hospital away from Alberta Health Services and turned it over to Covenant Health — a private, Catholic healthcare provider — and that further hospitals would follow. The story raised many questions, including which services Covenant Health might refuse to perform on faith-based grounds.

Lauryn Heintz is a reporter at CityNews Calgary. “The idea that people should be able to access healthcare in their community, and that it should be readily available, is really called into question when you’re looking at privatization, especially with an organization that runs on religious views,” says Heintz.  

So why is the government making this move? And in the bigger picture, what form is the decentralization of Alberta’s health-care system likely to take?

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