Report highlights cost of Alberta’s private surgical contracts amid gov’t corruption scandal

Allegations of political interference involving Alberta Health Services (AHS) surgical contracts have been floating around the provincial government for weeks, and now a scathing new report is adding fuel to the fire.

Findings from the Parkland Institute’s new institute report released by researchers at the University of Alberta, titled Operation Profit: Private Surgical Contracts Deliver Higher Costs and Longer Waits, suggests just that, potentially escalating things even further.

As the province continues to be hit by allegations of corruption and political interference, the author of the study said it should serve as a warning. The study includes findings on the Alberta Surgical Initiative (ASI), and what it’s costing taxpayers.

Using public data, report author Andrew Longhurst, who is a health policy researcher at Simon Fraser University, shows that since the province started contracting through the ASI in 2019, wait times for nine out of 11 surgical procedures provided by private providers are being delivered at higher costs and with much longer wait times, even though the purpose for the switch was to reduce them.

“That’s quite the opposite of what the government has stated as one of the main intents, or objectives of this initiative,” Longhurst said.

Longhurst said public funding to for-profit facilities has increased by 66 per cent, while public operating rooms only saw a 12 per cent funding increase.

“To see such a stark consequence of contracting or outsourcing to for-profit facilities suggests that this initiative is really damaging to our public hospitals, because it’s shifting that workforce from public hospitals to those for-profit facilities,” Longhurst said.

But it’s not just wait times that are on the rise.

Since the province started contracting through the ASI in 2019, the report finds that the average cost per outsourced procedure has risen by 79 per cent, compared to those performed in public hospitals. Last year alone, the costs jumped by more than 50 per cent.

Even with these consequences, Longhurst said it’s quite obvious what direction the province is moving in when it comes to health care.

In the midst of the wrongful dismissal lawsuit involving former AHS CEO, Athana Mentzelopoulos, Longhurst said these findings are particularly concerning.

The former AHS CEO is suing the province for wrongful dismissal, saying she was fired in January for looking into the overpays on contracts with private surgical providers.

Mentzelopoulos was accused of stonewalling critical health reforms while pursuing a fantasy investigation that turned up nothing.

“A lot of the concerns that she raised in her allegations relate to the fact that for-profit facilities are receiving a premium, they’re receiving much more public funding than public hospitals to perform the very same procedures,” Longhurst said.

Premier Danielle Smith and Health Minister Adriana LaGrange have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, the LaGrange filing a statement of defence suggesting Mentzelopoulos was fired due to incompetence.

Longhurst says the report is further evidence of potential corruption.

“A select number of people are making a significant amount of money on this policy initiative, and that’s why it’s continuing,” he says.

He said a possible solution could be moving towards centralized wait lists, but even in the midst of the ongoing AHS scandal, he doesn’t think it’s a step the province would be willing to take.

“There’s something going on here, and I think this again seems to corroborate a lot of the concerns that have been raised by the former Alberta Health Services CEO,” Longhurst said.

He hopes the province will seriously consider the report, and the consequences of utilizing private surgical facilities when moving ahead with overhauling the health care system.

“I’d like to see this government put that ideological approach aside, and actually look at the academic empirical evidence that tells us what reduces wait times, and really go full throttle on those initiatives that will get Albertans their surgeries more quickly,” Longhurst said.

A former judge hired by the province, the auditor general and the RCMP are all pursuing separate investigations into the claims by Mentzelopoulos. Smith and LaGrange have both said the allegations are serious and ought to be thoroughly investigated.

With files from The Canadian Press