Medicine Hat News

The argument is both lengthy and tangled but the bottom line is this: Alberta's Friends of Medicare say the provincial government is secretly planning to privatize your health care and the province completely denies it.

David Eggen, executive director for Friends of Medicare, was in Medicine Hat Wednesday evening to meet with the public regarding what has been a very eventful couple of months for the health care system.

On top of a pile that already includes the firing of Alberta Health Services' CEO and the speedy passing in the legislature of Bill 17, the Alberta Health Care Act, a leaked government document has recently surfaced suggesting in print that the act is a simple stepping stone toward a private system.

"We're getting these leaks now that reveal secret plans to phase in more private health care into the province of Alberta," Eggen said. "We've been asking the question for months, what exactly is the agenda behind Bill 17? We guessed back then and I think we guessed quite accurately.

"I didn't realize the scope of the audacity that (the government) would have to move forward on some of these things, but I think it's pretty clear that this leaked document is really the second phase of the Alberta Health Act and let me tell you, it doesn't look too pretty at all."

Essentially, Eggen says the plan would be to start with insurance companies, allowing private providers to move in and bid amongst each other for your money. He says by allowing a parallel system of providers, costs for Albertans would skyrocket over time, as insurance companies would have an extreme amount of power.

"Privatization does not expand health care, it just shifts the power of where the money is," he said. "All the decision making would shift from doctors and health-care professionals to the insurance companies."

The issues go well past the thought of private insurance, Eggen stated.

Jan Bunney, chair for the FOM Palliser region, notes how the act doesn't include a patient charter, a section required by law. Instead, in it's place is a line stating the minister will put one together.

"There's an empty space there," Bunney says. "It's like me saying, you see that empty lot there? You can have a multi-million dollar casino there. Of course, it's not actually there."

Bunney says other local issues are on the forefront as well, such as the decision to contract out food services, which takes business out of Medicine Hat and puts it in Calgary, she argues.

With all the available food resources, Bunney wonders why more can't be done at the local level.

She also says several various expansions to local health care facilities, which have been promised by the government are also of concern, as people are wondering how much they can truly count on from the Progressive Conservative government.

One solution Bunney says could help these situations is to have designated spokespersons for each region that regular come to speak with the public.

"The public needs answers and they need someone locally who knows what's going on locally and we haven't gotten that."