As Alberta's auditor general examines procurement and contracting processes at Alberta Health and Alberta Health Services (AHS) because of allegations made by the most recently fired AHS CEO, a Sundre doctor has her own ideas of what's not working.
The time and money spent tearing apart Alberta Health Services and subsequently establishing four new government administrations would have been much better spent working to fix the imperfect system, according to Dr. Michelle Warren.
“We’ve seen a lot of money spent creating new boards and new CEOs and laying off this and laying off that,” said Warren, a Sundre physician who works at the Myron Thompson Health Centre’s emergency room and also owns and operates the Moose and Squirrel Medical Clinic alongside husband Dr. Rob Warren.
“But we’ve seen absolutely no improvements in care, no improved access to primary care providers, no increased access to surgeries or anything like that,” said Warren, who is also a past president of the Alberta Medical Association.
The doctor spoke with the Albertan prior to last week's release of a Globe and Mail article alleging Athana Mentzelopoulos, the former AHS CEO let go in January along with the entire AHS board, was dismissed days before she was to meet with the auditor general to talk about her investigation into procurement contracts and deals for private surgical facilities.
The day after the article was published, the auditor general launched an investigation
“At this time, the examination pertains to chartered surgical facilities, medication (ibuprofen or acetaminophen), and COVID-19 personal protection equipment,” Auditor General Doug Wylie said in a Feb. 6 statement.
Warren was responding to the Albertan's questions about the Alberta government’s ongoing efforts to restructure and rebrand new departments after Premier Danielle Smith announced plans late in 2023 to dismantle AHS.
“The money that they’ve spent on this quote, unquote restructuring should have been spent on stabilizing the staffing on the front lines and the people that actually do the work,” said Warren.
“It’s just been a waste of time. We’re not any further ahead.”
Warren said Alberta Health Services seems to have taken the fault for everything that happened throughout COVID-19.
“We’re litigating the pandemic – they’ve been blamed for the successes that we had during the pandemic and for everything else that happened,” she said. “I think that the breakup of AHS was driven by that and not by anything else.”
Speaking from her own past personal experience, she said political meddling that pushes drastic and sweeping changes in the health-care system typically does not yield positive results.
“I do know from having lived through previous political restructurings of our health-care system – from local boards to regional boards to AHS – is that innovation stops,” she said.
“People just try to hang on, the care gaps develop, and patients usually are the ones that suffer those consequences, and it takes about five or 10 years before we start seeing successes and moving through.”
She added AHS had received commendations from other regions for its work as a single health authority both prior to as well as during the pandemic. In 2018, AHS was ranked as being one of the top five most integrated health systems in the world during the 18th International Congress on Integrated Care that at the time was hosted in the Netherlands.
“It wasn’t perfect,” Warren said about AHS.
“Absolutely not. But I think we should have focused on fixing the immediate issues with access to health care and surgical treatments and everything else first before we started worrying about new pillars,” she said.
“Now we’ve got four boards and four ministers, and administrative costs have just gone through the roof.”
Asked whether the premier’s recent decision to once again disband the AHS board – that Smith herself had previously appointed – inspired any confidence, Warren said, “No. Not at all.”
The game of bureaucratic musical chairs amounts to little more than a distraction from the issues at hand, she said.
“How is that going to help access to surgery? How is that going to help access to obstetrics and gynecology? How is that going to deal with the lack of nurses – we’re still short staffed everywhere,” she said, “To me, they’re focusing on the wrong parts.”
Warren went onto express relief about not being in a position to take the government to task.
“I’ll put it this way – I’m really glad I am no longer in any significant role having to kind of battle this,” she said, adding she “lucked out” during her time with the Alberta Medical Association.
“I had a (health) minister (Jason Copping) that was really keen to make a difference and do the work,” she said.
Unable to comment on health minister Adriana LaGrange as she’s never experienced working with her, Warren said that compared with former health minister Tyler Shandro – who had controversially torn up the master agreement with doctors – Copping seemed to come to the table more willing to collaborate and build toward common interests.
Citing one silver lining amid an otherwise frustrating situation, Warren hailed the new physician funding framework as a positive development.
“It will let us be competitive with other provinces,” she said, adding that while it’s not an approach that would be compatible with their own clinic, the framework will nevertheless offer some physicians a suitable option that could potentially connect more Albertans with doctors.
“I’m glad that finally came around because we’ve been working on that for a few years now. So hopefully that will help with access.”
