Alberta medical leaders want more consultation after new bill unveiled featuring dual health-care system
CBC
A new bill aimed at allowing Alberta physicians to practise in both private and public health-care systems will keep family doctors out of the private system — for now.
“At this time, family medicine providers will not be eligible to be flexible participants within this new model,” the provincial government said in a news release on Monday, the same day that Bill 11, the Health Statutes Amendment Act, was introduced in the Alberta legislature.
The proposed legislation seeks to implement a “dual practice system."
The dual model was previously announced by Premier Danielle Smith last week.
Chris Gallaway, executive director of the advocacy group Friends of Medicare, has expressed concern about whether family physicians could become part of the dual practice system. On Monday he said the fact family physicians are not currently included in the plan gives him no comfort.
The proposed legislation also keeps emergency medicine and surgeries for life-threatening conditions, including cancer, within the public system.
The Alberta government says measures in the bill do not violate the Canada Health Act.
Matt Jones, minister of hospital and surgical health services, said the dual system could act as a physician recruitment measure.
“Alberta is not an island. Alberta competes for health-care professionals all across Canada, North America,” he said at a news conference Monday.
“So I would more look at it as we have an ability to allow physicians to do some private activity while making them responsible to do the majority or some portion of the public system.
“That's a compelling recruitment, attraction and retention tool for physicians and health-care professionals.”
The province intends to consult with health-care providers and organizations on potential limits to the public-private system.
For example, the province is considering having surgeons perform a set number of publicly funded surgeries as a condition for being allowed to practise in the private system. Another option is setting a minimum number of years in the public system before entering the private system.
Other possible guardrails include only allowing private surgeries in the evenings, weekends or at underused rural hospitals and prohibiting certain specialists from moving into private practice if there aren’t enough of them to sustain the public system.
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