No More For-Profit Care. Keep Our Labs Public

 

When the Alberta government attempted to turn laboratory services into a for-profit business through DynaLIFE, it promised Albertans they would save $100 million a year.

That experiment with for-profit health care failed spectacularly. It hurt patient care by reducing access and making wait times longer. It caused increased stress and burnout for the professionals caring for patients. And instead of saving Albertans money, it actually cost them $65 million.

Meanwhile, the biggest problem facing the health-care system is staffing, which has reached crisis levels.

The evidence is clear: for-profit health care would only make care worse. And it would do nothing to address the real problem, which is the staffing crisis.

I am calling on the Alberta government to learn the lessons of its own failed experiment with privatizing labs: keep health care publicly funded and publicly delivered; and fix the staffing crisis with retention and recruitment.