In a media release last week, the Government of Alberta announced plans to privatize the interfacility transfers in Calgary and Edmonton.
These are patient transports between hospitals or between hospitals and other service providers, and, according to the release, 174,000 interfacility transfers occur every year, with 20,000 in Calgary and 24,000 in Edmonton.
The government claimed in this release that this move will free up the public EMS system, which, in turn, should reduce response timed for medical emergencies.
According to the release, the contract has already been awarded to two for-profit companies.
The Innisfail-based Guardian Ambulance Ltd., a division of Medavie Health Services West, will cover Calgary transfers, while the Edmonton transfers will be taken over by Associated Ambulance and Service, which is based out of Mayerthorpe.
Health Sciences Association of Alberta, the union that represents EMS workers in Alberta, is not happy about this move.
In their own media release, the union claims that this move is “jeopardizing Albertans’ health care” and that it’ll “put patient safety at risk, exacerbate the staffing crisis and divert money from patient care to corporate profits”.
“It was only a few months ago that this government corrected its failed approach to for-profit health care after a complete failure to move community laboratory services to DynaLIFE,” said Mike Parker, President of the Health Sciences Association of Alberta. “Today, they are setting Albertans up to face the same problems with EMS.”
The media release goes on to argue that “the government claims this will help provide more resources to EMS, but evidence indicates that it will only worsen the health-care staffing crisis.”
Citing a report from the New Brunswick Auditor General and another from the National Union of Public and General Employees, HSAA points out that there were severe issues with the quality of care and fiscal management when Medavie, the head company of Guardian, took control of EMS in New Brunswick.
HSAA highlighrts that the auditor general’s report revealed that Nova Scotia’s privatization of their EMS actually “led to a paramedic shortage and resulted in Medavie receiving $8 million more in revenue than it should have”.
The contract also apparently “allowed ‘excessive use’ of staffing exemptions, leading to an ‘overstatement of response time performance.’”
Parker argues that for-profit delivery of health care has poor outcomes.
“The tragic lesson Albertans learned from the failure of DynaLIFE labs was that the promises of cost savings and improved efficiencies from corporate health care are nothing but a sham to undermine the public health-care system. For-profit health care reduces the quality and availability of health care as corners are cut in the name of profit, leaving Albertans to pay the price with their health.”
Supporters of for-profit healthcare delivery often argue that it fosters efficiency. What this means is that the service is either done more quickly, or more cheaply, or both.
Here’s the thing though: this is only possible if the cost of this delivery is reduced. This can only come through the reduction in service or the reduction in wages.
It is impossible for the private sector to provide the same level of service at the same cost. After all, for-profit companies have an added expense that the public sector doesn’t have: profit.
In order to generate a profit and provide the same level of service, companies must reduce costs. And that comes in the form of wages or cutting corners.
Parker went on to warn that the Alberta’s UCP government still hasn’t learned their lesson.
Not only is this government failing to learn from its own mistakes with for-profit health care in labs, but it is also choosing not to learn from others’ mistakes with the exact company they are providing an IFT contract to.
Rather than spending money on hiring more paramedics and more ambulances, the provincial government would rather spend public funds on subsidizing corporate profits and propping up lower wages for healthcare workers.
