Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is stripping her province’s health authority of the power to formulate policy, allocate funding and make other major decisions – and shifting those responsibilities to the government.
The Premier argues that dismantling AHS will improve care for Albertans, although it is unclear how the reorganization of the system will lessen the crisis in emergency rooms or improve access to primary care. For example, the government did not earmark more cash to hire staff or expand facilities. Some AHS bureaucrats will move to Alberta Health as part of the reorganization. While she said front-line staff will remain in place, she did not indicate how many people will lose their jobs in the transition.’s health system has taken on many forms. In 1994, 128 hospital boards, 25 public-health boards and 40 long-term care boards were consolidated into 17 regional health authorities, which were then cut in half nearly a decade later.
Steven Lewis, a Saskatchewan-based health policy expert who teaches at British Columbia’s Simon Fraser University, said dividing the health system creates “competition, friction at the seams” and reduces flexibility for planning and resource allocation. Katherine Fierlbeck, a professor at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia who specializes in health policy and politics, said there are levels of bureaucracy sewn into the creation of four separate organizations and that accountability measures, which were not detailed by the province, are the key to effectiveness.
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