First steps to reform Alberta Health Services coming this fall: premier

Premier Danielle Smith says the first steps are coming this fall to reconfigure Alberta's health delivery system — a plan the Opposition calls a recipe for more chaos from a government fresh off turning lab testing into a debacle.

"We will not delay," Smith told mayors, councillors and other local leaders at the Alberta Municipalities convention Friday.

She said Health Minister Adriana LaGrange is to present her proposal to Smith and cabinet Wednesday on how to decentralize Alberta Health Services.

"If we get the cabinet approval and the caucus approval, we would be moving on some of that direction in the fall so that we are prepared for the new budget cycle in February."

Smith has directed LaGrange to revamp the structure of Alberta Health Services, better known as AHS, saying it needs to be more responsive to regional needs and focus more on direct hospital care.

She has said LaGrange will look at whether AHS still needs to be in charge of non-acute functions such as midwifery, primary care staffing and continuing care.

Alberta finished centralizing its health system 15 years ago to create AHS.

Smith has made AHS reform the centrepiece of her leadership.

Last year, she fired the governing board of AHS and replaced it with a single administrator. She blamed the agency for failing to step up during the COVID-19 pandemic as hospitals came close to being overrun with patients.

Opposition NDP Leader Rachel Notley said Smith's plan is only going to make things worse, particularly given the province abandoned last month its attempt to fully privatize community lab services after the changes resulted in long waits for tests in Calgary and southern Alberta.

"People all across this province are struggling to get access to lab [testing] now because of the dysfunction of this UCP [government]," Notley told reporters after her speech to Alberta Municipalities delegates.

"Overlaying more disorganization on top of that is a recipe for further undermining our health care and our public health care.

"There is not a single solitary thing that this UCP government has done under [former premier] Jason Kenney's leadership or Danielle Smith's leadership that has made our health care better."

Alberta Municipalities represents and speaks for villages, towns and cities that make up about 85 per cent of the province's population.

Wetaskiwin Mayor Tyler Gandam, the newly elected president of Alberta Municipalities, said they're hoping for changes and improvements to fix doctor shortages and emergency rooms forced to limit their operating hours.

"I was speaking with members of council from Ponoka and hearing that their emergency room had been shut down nearly 20 times this year so far," Gandam told reporters.

"The last thing that a person should be worrying about is whether or not the emergency room is going to be open or an ambulance is going to able to respond to their call when they need it."

The convention focused mainly on calls for more funding from the province.

On Thursday, delegates voted 98 per cent on a motion calling on the province to roll back years of municipal funding cuts on infrastructure.

The association says the province has cut both per capita spending and the percentage of total budget spending for years, resulting in about $1.3 billion less investment in community infrastructure per year that needs to be returned, particularly as the province continues to attract thousands more newcomers a year.

Smith said she will look at ways to get more money to municipalities to help bring property taxes down along with more one-time funding from recent budget surpluses to help accelerate capital projects.

"'I've watched it happen many times that we're very generous [and] increase the funding when times are good, and then when times turn the other way, we ask you to take a pretty big haircut, and that puts a lot of extra pressure on you," Smith told the delegates.