Alberta health minister says hospital transfer plan isn't 'hard and fast'

Alberta Health Minister Adriana LaGrange says a plan to offload underperforming hospitals from Alberta Health Services to third-party operators is still up for discussion.

Alberta Health Minister Adriana LaGrange says a plan to offload underperforming hospitals from Alberta Health Services to third-party operators is still up for discussion.

LaGrange says the province won't transfer hospital operations so long as Alberta Health Services can provide reliable, quality health care.

"There's nothing hard and fast," LaGrange said Tuesday on the Shaye Ganam show on Corus radio in her first media comments on the plan since it was reported last week.

"They're coming back to me with a strategy on how they can actually do that, and the discussion is also around — if you are unable to do that, and if you are unable to provide the service that Albertans expect, particularly in our rural locations, do we need to look at another service provider?"

Last month, Premier Danielle Smith told a United Conservative Party audience in Drayton Valley, Alta., that she would look to transfer authority of some hospitals to other providers, such as Convenant Health, to create competition and fear.

The policy shift would be part of a bigger plan announced last year by Smith to dismantle Alberta Health Services (AHS), the provincial authority tasked with delivering front-line care.

LaGrange's office has not provided The Canadian Press with details about how underperformance might be measured or how staffing shortages commonly cited as the reason for temporary rural closures, including those at Covenant Health, might be addressed.