‘The problem is the patient experience’: Smith overhauls Alberta health portfolio

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, right, and Minister of Health Adriana LaGrange provide an update on what steps the government is taking related to allegations by former Alberta Health Services CEO Athana Mentzelopoulos, in Calgary, Alta., Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press)

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith defended her overhaul of the health services portfolio Saturday, saying it will improve health service in the province.

On her Saturday morning radio show, Your Province, Your Premier, Smith answered a question from host Wayne Nelson about how health care will work now, given it was divided into four different cabinet positions Friday: primary and preventative health services (Adriana LaGrange), hospital and surgical health services (Matt Jones), mental health and addiction (Rick Wilson) and assisted living and social services (Jason Nixon).

‘Multi-purpose facilities’

The four-headed health portfolio was created to find ways to divert Albertans away from emergency rooms when they don’t need one, Smith explained.

“If you need a doctor, you go through the emergency door,” Smith said. “If you have a mental health issue, you go through the emergency door, if you’re homeless, you go through the emergency door and if you need long-term care...(you use the) emergency door.

“That actually turned our hospitals into multi-purpose facilities,” she said, “that has taken them away from their core job, which is to deal with emergencies, and to make sure people can efficiently get surgery and also do the convalescence there.”

“We’ve tried it that way,” she said. “All-integrated. I think we need to try it a different way because it clearly wasn’t working, it wasn’t creating the kind of environment our nurses wanted to work in, and we’re working very hard to give (Albertans) a much-improved patient experience -- but to also have all our front line staff excited to get up for work in the morning.”

La Grange not demoted

Smith said former health minister Adriana LaGrange wasn’t demoted, but rather re-purposed to focus on a different aspect of health services.

“She’s (still) got the vast bulk of decision-making,” Smith said.

“How many times do you actually go into a hospital as a patient?” she asked. “It’s actually a small number of people who have to have a hospital visit experience – but all of us have to go to a primary care practitioner.

“There’s too many people not attached to a family doctor,” she added, “although we’re making improvements there, we can do more.”

She said the new setup in health is aimed at streamlining the patient experience.

“We have a real problem in the system,” she said, “from getting in to see your doctor, to getting diagnostic tests, from getting a recommendation to see a specialist, and getting their appointment time for surgery – that is the vast bulk of the problem in the patient experience, and I must tell you, I have such confidence in Minister LaGrange, with all the work she’s done.

“She’s going to dig into it, and we’re going to make incredible process improvements there.

“It’s a refocusing for her too,” she added. “We’ve got a little bit more work, obviously, to do on hospitals, but she’s done an incredible job of getting us to a point where a new minister can take over there.

“I need her focused on making sure this primary preventative care piece is able to be repaired as well.”

Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said the shift represents a “massive” demotion for LaGrange, who was once in charge of the entire health-care system.

Nenshi, who has called for LaGrange to resign, pointed out LaGrange is no longer in charge of doling out private surgical contracts or managing the acute care system.

“She can’t screw up hospitals more than she already has. I guess that’s an improvement,” he said.

Corruption allegations update

The premier also provided an update on inquiry into corruption allegations surrounding AHS and its procurement process.

“By June, we’ll at least get the independent judge to deliver the review,” she said.

“But we have to remember what the allegations were,” she added. “The allegations were that there were different fees being paid to different chartered surgical centres for the same surgery.

“And I think this is important,” she added, “Because we’ve just done the analysis of all these different hospitals -- in AHS -- that do the same kind of surgery.

“And I’ll tell you you what we’ve found,” she said. “In Medicine Hat, it’s the lowest place for the cost of doing these complicated joint surgeries. They cost an average $8,800 per surgery (in Medicine Hat), whereas at the University of Alberta (Edmonton), it costs an average $26,000 per surgery.

“So we have to look at this and say my goodness, why is there such variation with the cost associated with doing these knee replacements?”

“In some ways, the former CEO (Athana Mentzelopoulos), pointing this out and asking (why) caused us to ask the deeper questions about what’s going on in our hospitals,” she said, “and we’ve got some serious issues we want to look into.”

Smith said all joint replacement surgeries are not the same.

“There are more complex patients that go to the U of A,” she said. “It’s the place where, if you have a long surgery or you’ve got additional complicating factors, you go there because it is going to take a bit longer to do.

“But that doesn’t explain all of the variation (in cost),” she added, “so we’re going to dig deeper into that.”

With files from The Canadian Press