Private surgical clinic’s bankruptcy shows why public health should be publicly run
EDMONTON – Bankruptcy proceedings against a private, for-profit surgical facility in Calgary clearly illustrate why it is essential that Albertans’ health care is provided in public facilities staffed by public employees, says the president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees.
A media release published by Alberta Health Services this afternoon said AHS has asked the courts to appoint a receiver to oversee the affairs of Calgary’s Health Resource Centre during bankruptcy proceedings against the facility’s corporate owner, Networc Health Inc.
The private surgical clinic, located in Calgary’s former Salvation Army Grace Hospital, provides hip, knee, foot and ankle surgeries on contract to AHS. The hospital was closed by the former Calgary Health Region in 1996.
“Services provided by private for-profit facilities like the Health Resource Centre bring with them a whole range of additional potential problems, including service interruptions caused by financial issues and taxpayers left on the hook for surgeries paid for in advance and not performed,” said AUPE President Guy Smith.
“In addition, the operations of private facilities are not fully accountable to taxpayers and they have been shown to be more expensive to operate than public facilities,” Smith said.
For example, according to a Feb. 19 report in the Edmonton Journal, hip and knee surgeries done by HRC in 2004 cost an average 10 per cent more than the same surgeries done in public facilities — $8,690 compared with $7,900.
“With the Alberta government talking about opening up health legislation, this situation that we learned about today is an excellent illustration of why publicly run health care belongs in publicly owned and operated facilities,” Smith said.
“Here we have a for-profit facility that was hired to provide contract surgical procedures and suddenly we face a crisis because of the financial situation of the company that owns it,” Smith said.
The release described the AHS action as “moving to protect the interests of patients during bankruptcy proceedings in an ongoing legal dispute between Networc Health Inc., which owns HRC, and one of its creditors.”
It said AHS has asked the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench to appoint PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc. as the interim receiver so that surgeries at the facility may continue through the rest of 2010 while AHS opens eight new operating rooms elsewhere in Calgary.
“If AHS’s paramount concern is that patients are not disadvantaged by a private company’s financial issues, as CEO Stephen Duckett said in their news release, then they shouldn’t sign these kinds of deals with for-profit corporations,” Smith stated.
“These kind of deals are an open invitation to disrupted patient care,” Smith said. “This should not be allowed to happen again.”
In the 2009-2010 fiscal year, the AHS release said, HRC performed about 1,000 surgeries, including roughly a third of all hip and knee surgeries performed in Calgary.
“Alberta Health Services and Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky make a big deal about the fact health services in this province are ‘publicly funded,’” Smith said.
“As this bankruptcy proceeding shows, being publicly funded is not enough. Public health needs to be publicly operated as well to be accountable, effective, fair and there when you need it,” he concluded.
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For more information, contact:
Guy Smith, President, AUPE, 780-930-3301 or 780-265-2294 (cellular phone)
David Climenhaga, Communications Director, AUPE, 780-930-3311 or 780-717-2943 (cellular phone)