NDP, UNA and more blast UCP health care bill
By Lethbridge Herald on May 9, 2025.
Alexandra Noad
Lethbridge Herald
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Some of the heaviest hitters in health care advocacy joint forces Thursday to attack Bill 55: the Health Status Amendment Act, saying it will have detrimental impacts on all Albertans seeking care in hospitals.
Bill 55 will allow private hospitals to charge patient fees as well as discharge or move patients to another hospital or another location, such as a motel or care home, said the opposition NDP.
In the Thursday news conference, Sarah Hoffman, NDP shadow minister of health, called the bill a “betrayal” of Albertans.
“Bill 55 is a disgusting betrayal of the government’s responsibility to ensure care is available to Albertans when and where they need it, regardless of their ability to pay.”
Hoffman added the NDP will have an amendment to the bill to ensure patients needing care will not be transferred to a motel, shelter or the streets.
Chris Gallaway, executive director for Friends of Medicare, says the claim the UCP are making of privatization shortening wait times isn’t true.
“These claims are blatantly false; the opposite continues to happen,” said Gallaway. “Privatization in health care is already hurting our public hospitals, it’s fragmenting our workforce and it’s leading to longer wait times, including for life-saving surgeries like cancer surgeries.”
Raj Uppal, president of CUPE Alberta, stressed how privatization will put more strain on a struggling health care system due to the uncertainty it will cause.
“We’re facing shortages of health care workers across all disciplines, professions and services,” he said.
“It’s already worse that in health care we cannot staff and fill positions and with the uncertainty that (privatization) is going to change further will make it even tougher.”
Bill 55 will open the door to privatizations of hospitals, said Mike Parker, president of the Health Sciences Association of Alberta.
“This is deeply concerning. As the union representing over 30,000 frontline health care professionals in those hospitals, our members recognize that it’s the government’s next attempt to sell off parts of this health care system so they can believe to be making profits off of this work.”
He added that the privatization of lab services through DynaLIFE is an example of how the government’s plan of privatization will fail.
Karen Kuprys, second vice-president of United Nurses of Alberta, recognized that healthcare could be better, but said dismantling the services isn’t the answer.
“It really could be better here,” she said. “Instead of dismantling and disintegrating all of the services that we rely on, we could be propping up and funding properly our publicly funded and publicly delivered services.”
Cori Longo, secretary treasurer of the Alberta Federation of Labour, says privatization will not only affect patients, but also workers and working conditions.
“When we have a profit model, as opposed to a patient-centred model, we see workers taking the cuts on their back.”
Hoffman restated her concerns about the section of the discharging of patients and the consequences of them not leaving when discharged.
“There’s also a section about if somebody refuses to leave when they’ve been discharged, about their trespassing consequences, which include up to 10 days imprisonment.”
Hoffman, a former minister of health in Rachel Notley’s NDP government, described the section as wrong and shameful and something Albertans need to fight back on.
Bill 55 had its second reading on Wednesday where it was adjourned.
23-22
may be the beginning of the end of public health. similar crap has already been happening elsewhere in the country.
but, hey, if one is a blind, ignorant ucp no matter what stal-WART, all is good and the ndp, una and the like are just a bunch of commies.
at some point, more and more of us are going to need to stand up to the max to fight for the big picture, whether it be rogue mining practices or health care. we have the power to shut down the fools that are supposed to represent our needs, and we have the power to shut down big corp greed and irresponsible practices. we just need to accept that we may need to accept a little short term pain for long term gain.