Jordan: Should a religious provider run a publicly funded service? Well, It happens every day in hundreds of Catholic schools across three Canadian provinces. But here’s another question. Are schools different from hospitals? And if they are, then how? Last week, it came to light that Alberta’s Premier, Danielle Smith, Plans to turn stewardship over several public hospitals currently run by Alberta Health Services over to Covenant Health, a Catholic healthcare provider.
CLIP: Danielle Smith: We need Alberta Health Services to focus on delivering the best care in the 106 facilities. They operate for us, so we’re taking away all of their excuses. We’re moving the hospital authority over to Covenant Health
Jordan: now, providing better care and faster care. is a noble goal. But as you might imagine, taking hospitals away from a secular public organization and turning them over to a private religious organization has raised a ton of questions, along with no shortage of outrage.
So what does allowing Covenant Health to run these hospitals Look like in practice for patients, how do we know that they’ll do it faster or better? And what do Albertans who need the services provided in these public hospitals when the organization that now runs theirs refuses to provide them?
I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings. This is The Big Story. Lauren Heintz is a reporter with City News in Calgary who has been following this story as well as the overall Decentralization of healthcare in Alberta. Hello, Lauren.
Lauryn Heintz: Hi, Jordan.
Jordan: Thanks for finding some time for us on, uh, Tuesday After Labour Day.
Lauryn Heintz: Yeah, well, thank you for having me to talk about this really important story here in Alberta.
Jordan: Why don’t you rewind for folks outside of Alberta or people who maybe only saw a headline late last week? What did we learn last week about what is happening to Alberta’s hospitals?
Lauryn Heintz: Right. So, uh, around this time last week, we began to see video footage of Alberta’s Premier Danielle Smith talking at a Hardy run town hall event in a town called Drayton Valley and during this fireside chat of sorts, she began to describe, uh, the process that the province is undertaking at the moment, which is taking away hospital authority, uh, from Alberta health services and giving it to a private Catholic run healthcare organization called Covenant Health.
Jordan: Before we get into, uh, who they are and what they do, unusual, I guess, or, uh, or strange was it to get this kind of information in that kind of environment? This is something that I gather, like, no reporter was on, had not been in policy documents or anything.
Lauryn Heintz: That’s right. So the actual event happened, I believe it was on August 17th.
And so when most of us reporters were hearing about this for the first time, it was already about 10 days old. And we learned about this because a reporter working for a smaller news outlet in the area had published a story essentially recapping this event. And it went Wild as you can expect, especially because we were all kind of shocked, to say the least.
It’s not necessarily surprising to learn that the Alberta government is pushing for more privatization in some areas. But I suppose Most of the shock was partly in the way the message was delivered in that it was not in a big public venue, there was no media release, and it later came out that there was other big sort of policy announcements regarding other avenues of Alberta legislation that were also discussed at this event and not brought to the attention of us larger media organizations.
Jordan: And what is the timeline on this? Because this is the other thing that surprised me a little when I read the report. I gather, like, this is a changeover that is happening, uh, or even already happened, or will soon happen. Like, this is not, you know, here’s our, uh, timeline for next year’s policy.
Lauryn Heintz: Right. So the answer differs a bit depending on who you ask.
And ever since this news came out, the province has been quite particular in the way that it responds to questions about this topic, mostly because it is so or has been so controversial since the news first came out. But upon talking to representatives from Covenant Health, they actually told me that three years ago in August of 2021, uh, Alberta’s provincial government committed money to build what they call a maternity and community health center in La Crete, which is the hamlet where this hospital that’s being, uh, switched over is located.
They said that. They’ve been working with the province to build this community health center for over three years, and that Alberta Health Services at the time was the operator and provider of health services in that community. However, in April, two years ago, they apparently announced that Covenant Health was going to be the operator of that new health center.
Facility. They advertise this is a collaboration, um, that Covenant Health is working with Alberta Health Services, not against, um, and that the whole idea is this is going to elevate care for people in that community. This kind of contradicts even words that the Premier herself has said in that, uh, she believes, uh, Health services will thrive and get better with competition, which raised a lot of alarms for some people given that they don’t believe that this should be one of those services that people or companies have to compete for to get the best deal.
Jordan: Who are Covenant Health and why is it significant, I guess, from a patient’s perspective that they will be taking over management of some of these hospitals? For
Lauryn Heintz: Right, so Covenant Health is a Catholic healthcare provider that operates in Alberta’s so called integrated health system. In its own words, Covenant says that it is called to continue the healing ministry of Jesus by serving with compassion, upholding the sacredness of life in all stages, and caring for the whole person in body, mind, and soul.
soul. Right now it runs 17 sites in 12 communities across the province. And this is significant because the organization has made it clear that they have the right to operate and provide services based on their. Catholic beliefs.
Jordan: Give us an example of what kind of services we’re talking about here.
Lauryn Heintz: Right. So particularly reproductive services are in question here. It gets a bit confusing because if you go to look for, uh, information about services on Covenant Health’s website, uh, they provide you with a wealth of information, um, ranging from. Obstetrics to menopausal care, women’s cancer clinics, things like that.
However, they don’t ever specifically mention services like abortion. And when asked, representatives did not respond to questions on whether or not those facilities would provide abortions. The other service that is in question here Is medical assistance in dying otherwise known as made and Covenant has said that they will not or do not provide medical assistance in dying services at their facilities.
Jordan: So has there been and I obviously realized that, you know, in most cases, the changeover hasn’t happened yet. But has there been any kind of guidance for. for patients. Um, these are hospitals in rural areas, right? There’s not a lot of alternatives for somebody who might need a reproductive care want to access made like what happens to those patients.
Lauryn Heintz: That’s really the big question here is do people still feel that they can be adequately served by a health care provider that is running by its own set of rules. I I was able to find that the closest Alberta Health Services operated hospital is about 30 minutes away in a town called Fort Vermillion, and you would think perhaps that that would be feasible for some people to go to that community and access care, but then you wonder potentially people that are looking at accessing Maid and what their health situation is, whether it be physical or mental, and that short drive might not be doable for them.
And The idea that people should be able to access health care in their community and that it should be readily available is really called into question when you’re looking at privatization, especially with an organization that runs on their own.
Jordan: Can you explain maybe a little bit more about how the privatization aspect of this comes into play? Because to be clear, these hospitals are still not going to be charging patients for private services, right? But now it’s a Catholic organization that will be billing back to the government for them. Is that right?
Lauryn Heintz: I think that is correct. My understanding is that the way patients access care would not be any different from how they would access care at a facility run by Alberta Health Services. The real difference that comes into play is the care that they are able to access.
Jordan: What has Premier Smith said about why this needs to happen?
Like, what’s the current state of these facilities that would, uh, demand this? Or just like, what’s the, what’s the reasoning here, I guess?
Lauryn Heintz: Issues have kind of been permeating Alberta’s healthcare system, specifically rural healthcare, for a long time now. It’s, uh, it’s not uncommon to see any day of the week that a rural, uh, emergency department is shut down.
So, for any length of time, and typically that is attributed to a lack of physician coverage or nurse coverage. And so Premier Smith has essentially said Alberta Health Services is not doing a good job at managing their facilities, and therefore that responsibility needs to be given to someone else who she believes.
Can do a better job.
Jordan: Do we know if they do a better job? Like they provide care in other facilities already, right? They have their own. So what do we know about whether they’re faster, more efficient, et cetera, et cetera.
Lauryn Heintz: So when this conversation initially began with Smith’s comments at this town hall, she made claims saying that Covenant Health had never closed an emergency department.
Um, they had never left. The people in their community without emergency room care and a quick Google search of their facilities shows that that is in fact not true. There were posts for some of their, uh, rural facilities dating back months ago. They echo some of the, the comments we’ve seen about AHS facilities of them having to be closed overnight or for several hours because they don’t have a doctor.
So we really don’t know. We don’t have apples to apples to compare in this situation. But we do know that AHS has closed emergency rooms, and we do know that Covenant Health has also been forced to close some of their emergency rooms.
Jordan: What have the reactions been from Albertans in general, uh, since the news broke?
Lauryn Heintz: I’d say they’re mixed. There are some people that say, if this is the way to get us out of this, This whole that we found ourselves in with health care, then why not take that opportunity? But then there are others who say this, this goes against kind of what we stand for in that health care shouldn’t be.
privatized, I’d say the biggest point of contention and conversation around all of this is really what this means for services like gender affirming care, abortion, MADE, all of those services that are already being called into question by legislation that’s being proposed by the United Conservative government and is now perhaps getting closer to reality With these transitions that are being planned and have already taken place in some cases.
Jordan: As you cover healthcare in general in the province, I guess the last thing I want to get at is what are you seeing or hearing in the big picture, um, that this is a part of? What’s happening to Alberta’s healthcare system right now? And what are you watching for in the months to come?
Lauryn Heintz: Frankly, it’s, it’s collapsing.
I don’t think there’s a better way. To put it and we’re not just talking about hospital care here. We’re talking about surgery wait times. We’re talking about the fact that as many as 700, 000 Albertans don’t have a family doctor. There are numerous, numerous problems with Alberta’s health care system.
And so far, the province’s solution to that has been essentially a proposal to decentralize Alberta Health Services. And so they’ve said they want to separate the agency into different sections in order for them to, they say, more adequately address each of them. And so far we haven’t seen that happen.
They’ve started to make some inroads in terms of changes to mental health and addictions care in the province, which of course has also drawn ire from many critics for, for their approach. And honestly, it’s, it’s kind of scary. You don’t really know where we can go from here and you hope that it won’t get worse, but you’re not necessarily hopeful that it will will get better.
The outlook for health care in Alberta right now is quite dismal and this fits into that network of potentially taking away vital care from people who need it most and people who are very, very far away from the major centers where They may otherwise be able to access this care very readily, and I think people are worried, and I think they’re unsure of what’s next.
I think in the next weeks and months to come, I will be watching for what happens next in the decentralization. process, what happens to essential healthcare services in the province and what that means for the people who need to access them. Just, uh, early last week we learned about a new First of its kind for profits, a health care center being built in Erdrey, just north of Calgary, a city of thousands that does not have a hospital, and the province gave that company 85, 000 to do a research plan to build this private health facility and especially ahead of leadership review for Premier Danielle Smith.
In the next few months, we’re expecting to hear lots of announcements on changes to policy and legislation that will impact all aspects of Albertans lives, but especially health care.
Jordan: Lauren, thank you so much for walking us through this. Uh, sounds like interesting times out there for people who need care.
Lauryn Heintz: Yes. It’s, it’s quite something, Jordan, and we, we hope to get more answers as the days come, but it’s an ever evolving story that affects many people.
Jordan: Thank you so much for joining us.
Lauryn Heintz: Thank you for having me.
Jordan: Lauren Heinz is a reporter with City News in Calgary. That was the big story. You can find more big stories at the big story podcast.ca.
You can always send us feedback on this story or any other episode you hear by writing to us at hello at thebigstorypodcast. ca or by calling us and leaving a message 416 935 5935. We’re in all your favorite podcast players and of course we’re on your smart speaker when you ask it to play the Big Story Podcast.
Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.
Back to top of page
