The Ministry of Hospital and Surgical Health Services says that while overall surgeries have dropped, operating room hours have increased, indicating that higher complexity procedures are being prioritized in the public system.--NEWS FILE PHOTO
zmason@medicinehatnews.com
On Nov. 14, the Alberta government announced a new Acute Care Action Plan as part of its overhaul of the province’s health care system.
Cypress-Medicine Hat MLA and Parliamentary Secretary for Rural Health South Justin Wright outlined the plan’s six priorities in a column in the News last week.
“With 1,000 new hospital beds, 50,000 additional relief funding of $1.5 million, this comprehensive strategy addresses urgent pressures while building for the future,” Wright wrote of the plan.
One of the key components of the new plan is the addition of 50,000 surgeries over the next three years.
In a statement to the News on Monday, the Ministry of Hospital and Surgical Health Services said the 50,000 surgeries will be performed across both hospital and chartered surgical facility settings.
“What we’re seeing for that mix already, approximately 20-ish to 30-ish per cent, is being covered by our surgical suites. So maintaining roughly that mix is my understanding of where we’re going to see that,” said Wright in an interview with the News on Saturday.
The province’s current mix sees 20.2 per cent of surgical procedures conducted in private CSFs.
When the UCP government under Jason Kenney outlined the Alberta Surgical Initiative in 2019, it established a benchmark of 30 per cent of surgeries in chartered surgical facilities by 2023.
Provincial data gathered by the News last week shows that since the establishment of ASI, the number of surgical procedures in public facilities has dropped by just over 2,500 surgeries compared to 2018-19, prior to the initiative’s implementation.
In a statement to the News, the Ministry of Hospital and Surgical Health Services said the primary goal of expanding capacity in CSFs is to enable hospitals to focus on complex, higher-acuity procedures.
“This means hospitals’ operating rooms are busier, as higher-acuity cases take longer and require more extensive infrastructure and support,” said the ministry.
The ministry says provincial data reflects this trend. During the first three quarters of the 2024-25 year, the ministry says the top 16 AHS sites completed approximately 308,500 operating room hours, an increase of about 6,300 hours or 2.1 per cent compared to the same period last year.
“This demonstrates a continued annual rise in surgical activity and improved timely access for Albertans,” said the ministry.
“This isn’t a one or the other type approach,” added Wright.
Wright says the and Premier Danielle Smith met with a group of orthopaedic surgeons in Medicine Hat prior to the announcement of the action plan. Wright told the News the surgeons informed them they have only six days per month of operating time due to restrictions on operating room availability.
He says the action plan includes provisions for surgeons to rent out additional space in hospitals or chartered surgical suites to perform more surgeries, and includes a voucher program that enables Albertans to travel to a different health corridor to receive more timely treatment.
More complex surgeries, Wright attests, will remain in hospitals, where patients can benefit from more robust wraparound services.
Several anesthesiologists and a former AHS vice-president told a journalist last week that anesthesiologists, the province’s most in-demand surgical personnel, are preferentially scheduled at chartered surgical facilities.
When asked about this claim, the ministry told the News that the allocation of physician resources to CSFs is strictly for publicly funded cases.
