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Way back in mid April, as the province confronted the Covid pandemic with such an ample supply of respirators it was able to donate supplies to other provinces, Premier Jason Kenney was effusive in his praise of Alberta Health's procurement professionals.

He held a news conference with a senior official, Jitendra Prasad, praising him and his team for their foresight in preparing for the health emergency.

Implicit in that praise was a recognition that the experience developed by a professional and stable public service saved the day.

Prasad stated it explicitly during the press conference.

"We are very, very fortunate that we have a single health care system in Alberta which has given us an enormous amount of experience in being able to do the things we are doing today."

This week Alberta's health minister announced a plan to cut up to 11,000 public sector health care jobs, outsourcing them to private contractors.

The cuts, at least during the continuing pandemic, won't include nurses or front line clinical staff.  Laundry, lab, food services and cleaning staff will be privatized over the next three years.  And at least 100 management jobs will be eliminated.

The initial protection of clinical staff is meant to assure the public that front-line health care  won't be endangered by these moves.  But it's pretty tough to know where a weak or destabilized link in the health care team can spell disaster.

The procurement team, for instance, made a difference at the beginning of the Covid crisis.  Who knows if a runaway superbug might make cleaning and laundry even more critical than it is now in some future emergency?

Shandro argues that the provincial plan isn't a matter of lost jobs, but rather just a changing of the employer.  But there's no guarantee the same people doing the lab tests and housekeeping  now will be the ones hired by private sector contractors.  The 100 management jobs will be eliminated, despite Alberta Health Services reputation as having the leanest management in the country.  The type of experience the government counted on in April could evaporate in the shift.

The government argues that there is a good deal of privatization in the job classifications about to be hit.  The big cities already outsource laundry and in northern Alberta, 70 per cent of lab work is done by a private contractor.

But the fact that not all services have been included until now hints that there may be issues with finding contractors and the complexity of the testing required.

Rural areas, for instance, could struggle to find a private service supplier who will take on small hospitals and clinics without the economies of scale to ensure profit margins.

The whole question of exactly what the cost benefits will be from this exercise is another issue.

The government predicts $600 million will be saved annually once all the cuts are implemented.  Shandro admits that's only an estimate.  The savings depend on the final contracts with private sector suppliers.

But the intangible cost of the announcement is already being felt, including its toll on labour peace.

Public service unions are already sabre rattling.  Guy Smith, president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, is talking about potential strike action.

The unions and the NDP are particularly targeting the bizarre timing of the announcement.

Even though many of the cuts wouldn't be implemented for a year or more, the laying out of the plan in the middle of the Covid second wave is bewildering.  Critics all argue the UCP is sowing chaos in a health care system strained to the brink with burned out and overworked healthcare staff.

Back in April Prasad offered his thanks to the government for enabling his team to do such a sterling job preparing the healthcare system for the pandemic.

"A lot of credit goes to the leadership of AHS, to the support we have from the government, the premier personally and the minister."

Ultimately that support apparently pales in comparison to the UCP's ideological imperative to privatize and reduce the public sector.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


11,000 jobs, cut, just like that.  The number is astounding.  Even more astounding when you realize that these jobs are government jobs.  Increase the astoundingness a couple of levels because these are 11,000 health services jobs.  Gone.  In the middle of the 2nd wave of a pandemic with no end in sight.  11,000 health care jobs.

That is the brilliantly tone-deaf move made by the Alberta government of Jason Kenney this week.  The announcement, made by Health Minister Tyler Shandro, comes following a review of Alberta Health Services conducted by Ernst and Young, which identified areas that could help the province save up to $1.9 billion annually.

The announcement made by the United Conservative Party does not implement every recommendation, but the job cuts will amount to $600 million annually.  There is no question such a major move will destabilize the entire public health-care system during very dangerous times.

At what point should common sense prevail over the privatization ideology favoured by Kenney's UCPs?  "For most cases this is a matter of workers just changing their employer from AHS to the independent provider," stated Shandro.  So the bulk of the 11,000 jobs lost will come from outsourcing jobs, which is code for privatizing.  Which means lower pay, little benefits for a workforce that will be less motivated, and eventually, less educated down the road.  With higher turnover rates.

We're talking about housekeeping and laundry, of course, always a low-hanging fruit for health care privatizers.  But also food services, because nothing says healthier meals than cheaper food services.  And, as delays remain unreasonable to get COVID-19 and other test results, laboratories will also be outsourced.  That ought to speed things up.

"There can be no job losses for nurses or front-line clinical staff during the pandemic," Minister Shandro said during the announcement.  That is not good enough.  Shandro is completely dismissing the importance of support staff in the health care system.  As if their departure won't change much for those who stay.  Make no mistake, as care staff and support staff are let go, this will have a direct impact on overworked, überstressed front-line clinical care workers and nurses.  And therefore, it will have a direct impact on patients' care.

It is hard to understand why the UCPs would want to throw health care into chaos at this time, putting patients at risk, putting workers at risk.  After six months of this pandemic, short-staffing hospitals seems like a short-sighted view of the world we now live in.

The UCPs have been dropping in voting intentions since the beginning of the pandemic, as Kenney's handling of the crisis has been judged as sub-par by Albertans.  Incidentally, Kenney has one of the highest dissatisfaction ratings amongst premiers of the country, with 24% saying they are very dissatisfied and 18% being somewhat dissatisfied with his performance, according to a Léger poll.

Considering all of this, I couldn't think of a worse political marketing move for the Conservatives than cutting 11,000 health care jobs in the midst of a pandemic.  This is a gift for Rachel Notley and the NDP, who will be able to campaign hard on health care.  Thanks to Kenney's ideological, tone-deaf approach to the pandemic, Notley will have the opportunity to show that 2015 was no accident and that the New Democrats are, and will remain, a contender for power in Alberta.

Photo Credit: Calgary Herald

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.