New Acute Care Funding Model Creates Profit-Driven Marketplace For Surgeries, Risks Patient Care: HSAA

EDMONTON – The Health Sciences Association of Alberta (HSAA) is raising concerns after the Government of Alberta announced that Alberta’s new acute care funding model will incentivize for-profit corporations at the expense of patient care and sustainable staffing levels.

“Surgeries aren’t just performed by surgeons,” said HSAA President Mike Parker. “It takes a multi-disciplinary team of health care professionals looking after Albertans at every stage of their health care journey. Yet today, there was no commitment from the government to retain or recruit the staff necessary to make a real difference in surgical wait times.” 

“Instead, the government announced that health care in Alberta will simply no longer be operated as a public service,” Parker continued. “Health care is now a profit-driven marketplace subject to competition for funding, competition for staff, and competition between providers for who can secure the biggest CEO bonus or shareholder dividend.”

The Government of Alberta’s new "activity-based” funding model will tie funding to the number and type of procedures performed, creating incentives for private companies to cherry-pick low-complexity surgeries that maximize profits. Without a real investment in retaining and recruiting staff, this model will leave Alberta’s hospitals under-resourced and understaffed. 

Any benefits to wait times from the new model are likely to be temporary, Parker added.

“Once these for-profit companies successfully corner the market, prices will go up and the cost to taxpayers will go through the roof,” he explained. “Meanwhile, the number and quality of major surgeries performed in the public system will go down, as hospitals lose staff and become forced to rent public suites back to specialists within these same corporations.”

Under this new model, Albertans will experience a health system where speed and volume take precedence over safety and quality of care. Doctors and other frontline professionals will be pressured to complete procedures within tighter time frames to maximize profits, leaving less time for pre-operative assessments, proper procedures, and post-operative care. 

“This model turns patients into statistics rather than people deserving of thoughtful, compassionate treatment,” said Parker. “This approach only increases the risk of complications and infections, all while turning public dollars to private profits.”

A recent study by the Parkland Institute shows a troubling trend under Alberta’s current use of for-profit surgical facilities under the Alberta Surgical Initiative (ASI), including fewer surgeries performed in public hospitals compared to pre-pandemic levels, as well as skyrocketing payments to private companies and worsening wait times for major cancer surgeries.

HSAA notes that the only reason the new model isn’t being implemented in rural communities is because rural populations can’t create a large enough market for for-profit providers, which means the government prefers rural patients travel further and pay more for surgical care.  

“That should tell Albertans everything they need to know,” said Parker. “This isn’t about wait times. It’s about turning health services for Albertans into a product with a price tag.”

HSAA stands united with health care professionals and patients across the province in calling for a health system that prioritizes people over profit, and reinvestment in the workforce that lowers wait times within a publicly funded and publicly delivered health-care system.

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Media Inquiries:  
Matt Dykstra, Communications Officer  
780 690 8199 | mdykstra@hsaa.ca