Premier stands by promise to open 140 family clinics

Critics say plan makes no sense as province struggles with deficit

Premier Alison Redford says the province’s current fiscal crisis stemming from low oil prices won’t prevent her from fulfilling her promise to open 140 family-care clinics before the next provincial election.

The premier said in a yearend interview last week that opening the multi-disciplinary health clinics over the next four years is “entirely feasible” based on plans being developed by Health Minister Fred Horne.

“My expectation is Minister Horne has put together a plan that is going to allow this to happen,” she said. “I don’t see any reason why we can’t proceed to implement (it) fully before the next election.”

She made the comments a day after Finance Minister Doug Horner said that given the province’s dire financial situation, everything was on the table for cuts, including the 140 family-care clinics promised by Redford.

The province is grappling with a projected revenue shortfall next year that could be as high as $6 billion, according to anonymous government officials, due to poor land sales and a discounted price on Alberta oil due to a glut of oil in the U.S.

Opposition parties criticized the premier’s plan to proceed with family-care clinics, saying it is foolish to do so while the province is facing a sixth consecutive deficit and when clinics called primary-care networks are already performing a similar task.

“I flat out don’t believe that the premier will deliver on her promise to open 140 familycare clinics before the next election,” NDP Leader Brian Mason said.

“She would need to open 35 a year in order to deliver on her promise and she simply doesn’t have the revenue to do that. I’m expecting that this will be another broken promise.”

Wildrose MLA Rob Anderson said Alberta does need to invest more money into primary health care, but the way to do it is to invest in primary-care networks.

“For her to go hell bent on these family-care clinics is just silly.”

Anderson said the primary care network model is working and it is a more holistic approach.

“To impose another layer of health care into the primary health-care system that the doctors don’t think it a great idea doesn’t make a lot of sense,” he said.

About 40 primary-care network (PCN) clinics have opened in Alberta since 2003 with a goal of saving taxpayers money by keeping patients out of clogged emergency rooms and hospitals. Privately run by doctors, the PCN clinics feature teams of specialists who treat patients with illnesses and other health issues before they worsen.

The PCN clinics, unlike doctor’s offices, are supposed to provide around-the-clock care, but not all do.

The clinics announced by Redford will perform essentially the same services, but will not be privately run, and may not necessarily have doctors on staff.

Horne has said the familycare clinics are meant to complement PCNs rather than replace them.

Anderson said that the establishment of a family-care clinic as a pilot project in northeast Calgary resulted in the closure of a PCN operating in the area.

“To just duplicate these primary-care networks with new family-care clinics just seems complete folly, especially when the health professionals aren’t on board.”

Liberal Leader Raj Sherman said Redford came up with the idea of family-care clinics during last year’s Tory leadership race as an alternative to the PCNs established by rival Gary Mar, a former health minister under Ralph Klein.

He said Redford can save “political face” face by simply changing the name of the existing primary-care networks to family-care clinics. He said she should maintain what works and put in some strong performance accountability measures that were lacking in the original PCNs.

“I would urge her strongly to reconsider, and not be stubborn,” he said.

“Don’t start a whole new unproven model of care that doesn’t have the buy-in of Alberta’s physicians.”

Sherman, an Edmonton emergency room physician, said Alberta can’t afford 140 new clinics.

“I don’t see where the money is going to come from,” he said. “We have a huge deficit already.”

Redford said she came up with the idea of family-care clinics as a way of simplifying the health-care system, especially for young families.

“It just sort of made sense to me that if you were a parent that had young children and a lot of different family members to take care of that it was getting to the point where primary health care was becoming an incredibly complicated business,” she said. “In some ways, it is almost like going back to the way health care was when I grew up, except the primary health-care provider doesn’t have to be a doctor.”

She said many Albertans today are taking more ownership of their health care and “often what they need is access to professional advice that may or may not be from family physician, but could be from someone else who is qualified.”

“I just sort of see it as a natural evolution in the healthcare system.”