The province has taken the operation of a northern Alberta hospital away from Alberta Health Services and turned it over to a private, Catholic healthcare provider.

Premier Danielle Smith reportedly told this to a group of people at a United Conservative Party (UCP) town hall event in Drayton Valley earlier this month.

“We need Alberta Health Services (AHS) to focus on delivering the best care in the 106 faciliities they operate for us. They have been distracted trying to run everything else, so we’re taking away all their excuses,” she said in a video of the event circulating on social media. “I can tell you also that we’re prepared to take away their authority to operate hospitals as well.”

Smith’s comments were first reported by Great West Media.

She goes on to say a transfer of power has already taken place in the northern Alberta hamlet of La Crête — Covenant Health now runs that hospital.

“Covenant Health has never closed down rural hospitals. Why is it that Covenant Health is able to keep operating rooms and hospitals open 24 hours a day but AHS can’t?” Smith said. “And it may well be that we just need different operators in the smaller communities so that we can get back to delivering that level of care.

“We’re very open-minded about that — I want to give AHS every opportunity to succeed but do know that our number one is making sure that you get your healthcare close to home.”

The video shows the premier’s comments being met with applause.

Covenant Health already operates hospitals in Edmonton, Banff, Bonnyville, Camrose, Castor, Killam, and Vegreville as well as several continuing care facilities throughout the province.

In a statement to CityNews, a Covenant Health spokesperson says it is a faith-based provider that runs under agreements which acknowledge their “right to operate according to our own ethics and beliefs.” The healthcare provider is not funded to provide Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), it adds.

This comes days after news a first-of-its-kind private urgent care clinic was being proposed in Airdrie. Alberta gave One Health Associate Medical $85,000 in tax money to come up with a business plan.

‘No evidence’ to support Smith’s claims, advocacy group says

Healthcare advocacy group Friends of Medicare is slamming the premier’s comments, saying there is “no evidence” to support her claims about Covenant Health’s track record versus AHS.’

The groups says the decision to take power away from AHS is about politics, not care.

“Using Alberta Health Services as a scapegoat for our government’s own failings in health care is an age-old strategy here in Alberta, but Danielle Smith has turned it into a political obsession designed to rally her base against our public health care,” Chris Gallaway executive director of Friends of Medicare, said in a statement.

“The fact our Premier is making such a major announcement about our health care system at a party membership meeting in Drayton Valley, instead of to the public, highlights how her agenda in health care is about politics, not meeting the health needs of Albertans.”

Advocates have long been calling for improvements to the province’s healthcare system amid concerns about short staffing and compromised care.

The premier’s office denies those claims.

“Alberta’s government has been clear that we expect to see better results from Alberta Health Services, especially when it comes to providing acute care services in rural and remote communities – where we’ve seen an increasing number of temporary or long-lasting closures of emergency departments,” it said in a statement to CityNews. “We’ve raised these concerns with AHS and have asked them to develop strategies to address them.”

Alberta NDP leader, Naheed Nenshi, said in a post to X, Smith wants a healthcare system ruled by “competition and fear.”

“This is bizarre, and it’s not going to work,” he wrote, in part. “Systems that are based on fear will inevitably collapse and those incentives don’t work in public service delivery.”

Nenshi also highlighted the failures of the UCP’s last attempt at privatizing parts of the healthcare system when it transferred lab services to DynaLIFE in December 2022. That contract was ultimately ended about a year after it first began due to long delays and wait times, which were acknowledged by Minister of Health Adriana LaGrange.

The province says it want to support and empower the “incredible” frontline healthcare workers to continue giving excellent care.

Alberta first announced in November its plans to decentralize AHS almost 14 years.

The plan was to create one provincial healthcare system with specialized areas of focus by dividing AHS into four separate organizations: primary care, acute care, continuing care, and mental health and addictions.