New legal structure of Alberta health system in place, Premier Smith now eyes results
Global News
Danielle Smith's ongoing effort to re-make, re-assemble and re-animate the pieces of the health-care system hasn't been the Alberta premier's only challenge in 2025.
The Alberta government in 2025 completed the final legal foundations of its new health-care system — and Premier Danielle Smith says she’s working in 2026 to prove it was worth it.
The massive reorganization saw Smith dismantle Alberta Health Services as the provincial health authority and relegate it to a hospital service provider.
Smith said with one major piece of legislation passed in the fall sitting, the restructuring effort “is pretty much done.”
New health agencies now govern hospital care, continuing care, mental health and addiction, and primary health — under the direction of Smith’s four health ministries.
“So now it’s a matter of each one of those areas optimizing,” Smith said.
The premier acknowledged the challenges.
She promised a new public-facing dashboard that would show decreasing wait times for emergency rooms, ambulance rides and surgeries, along with 1,500 new spaces per year in continuing care.
She said her government’s move to allow more nurse practitioners to open practices in the province is part of why fewer Albertans are now unattached to a primary-care provider.
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