Premier Smith questioned on private surgical facilities charging more than public ones

Alberta’s premier continues to be peppered with questions about the ongoing Alberta Health Services (AHS) scandal in light of a former CEO’s wrongful dismissal lawsuit.

Danielle Smith said Monday that AHS was not accurately reporting important information on surgery costs, adding the reports showing chartered surgical facilities charging more for operations compared to public facilities is not a fair comparison.

The Canadian Press recently obtained internal documents showing Alberta Surgical Group was billing the government $8,300 for hip replacements, while estimates for the procedure when done in public facilities was just over $4,000.

“We can’t be making up numbers with AHS in order to make it look like charter surgical facilities are more costly and that’s what it looks like to me,” says Smith.

She says adding public facility estimates don’t include costs like implant devices, facility fees, and imaging.

Legal counsel for Alberta Surgical Group tells CityNews they are unable to disclose specifics on their contract with the province since it has a confidentiality clause, but pointed to figures from the Canadian Institute for Health Information which shows the costs for hip replacements in Alberta is $10,474.

Alberta Surgical Group’s existing two-year contract expired at the end of October, and AHS was in the process of negotiating the extension when Health Minister Adriana LaGrange issued a directive stripping the health authority and Mentzelopoulos of their authority to approve contracts.

LaGrange’s directive also required AHS to issue the extension for Alberta Surgical Group at rates set by the minister. 

Those rates are slightly less for hip and knee procedures listed in the chart as first proposed by the Alberta Surgical Group — at about $7,000 — although the shoulder surgery rate is higher than what the group proposed at $10,500.

Both Smith and LaGrange have denied any involvement in the negotiation and procurement of the contracts.

“The numbers we do know and the numbers that we have seen in other jurisdictions, like Ontario, show that it is more expensive to do these surgeries in private facilities than public hospitals,” says Friends of Medicare executive director Chris Gallaway. “One of the main reasons is the need to make a profit.”

The premier’s defence comes after former AHS CEO Athana Mentzelopoulos launched a wrongful dismissal lawsuit earlier this month. She alleges she was fired after looking into allegations of a conflict of interest.

The suit accuses government officials involved in negotiating the contracts with chartered surgical facilities and private contractors of having ties to the companies. Mentzelopoulos also claims she was pressured to sign contracts that were overpriced when comparing them to other private contractors and internal AHS costing.

None of the claims have been tested in court.

“There’s going to be increased pressure coming from constituents speaking to their MLAs, their cabinet ministers and saying what’s going on here, I’m barely managing to make ends meet and paying my taxes and they are being used to pay for things for more than they are worth,” says Mount Royal University associate professor Lori Williams.

Alberta’s auditor general is investigating AHS’ procurement processes and Smith’s UCP government have said they will cooperate with the investigation.

With files from The Canadian Press