Nearly 1,700 jobs at Alberta Health Services could be axed as the health authority struggles with a 3.3 per cut in this year’s provincial budget.
AHS will get $371 million less in the coming 12 months, even though it will have to pay workers more from the $10.9 billion pot it gets from government due to previously negotiated increases with unions.
But Health Minister Stephen Mandel says front line care in the provinces hospitals and nursing homes will not be compromised.
“Alberta’s health spending is out of line with other provinces,” Health Minister Stephen Mandel said in a prepared statement. “This budget uses a calm, reasoned approach, which will protect patient care as we cut spending and find efficiencies.”
It also appears plans to build a new cancer facility for Calgary — announced by the Tory government two years ago for the third time in a decade — may be delayed by another two years until 2018.
In its last budget, the province said it planned to spend $40 million in 2015-16 on designs for a $1.3 billion replacement for the aging and overcrowded Tom Baker Cancer Centre.
But that line item has disappeared entirely from this year’s document, replaced by a combined $17 million for planning and design for all new heath care facilities in both Calgary and Edmonton.
“Patients in southern Alberta are not getting the cancer they deserve,” said John Osler, spokesman for a citizens group lobbying for a new centre.
“It’s extremely disappointing that the government seems to have abandoned any plan to build the world class facility they’ve repeatedly promised.”
Mandel’s press secretary Steve Buick said Calgary will still get a new cancer centre and details of the government’s latest plan and proposed timetable will be revealed at a media event on Monday.
“People can be reassured it will be an amazing facility,” said Mandel, “and one that will be a real sense of pride for the citizens of Calgary.”
The reductions in health spending come as the government introduces a health care contribution levy July 1 that will see an estimated 1.1 million Albertans pay as much as $1,000 a year more in taxes on a sliding scale once their annual income tops $50,000.
The new payroll levy — labelled a “waiting room tax” by opposition New Democrats — is expected to raise $396 million this fiscal year and $530 billion when it is fully implemented in 2016-17.
“This is not the (health care premium) system that we’ve seen in the past, which was regressive and had sizeable administrative costs,’ Finance Minister Robin Campbell said in his budget speech. “It will be based on an individual’s ability to pay, and will ensure that we are not causing undue hardship for vulnerable Albertans.”
Despite the levy’s moniker, funds raised through the new tax will go into the province’s general revenues not a special purse to cover health care costs.
Government officials are hopeful mass layoffs among the health authority’s 100,000-strong workforce can be avoided if positions are left unfilled when employees leave.
About one-fifth of the dollars for AHS’ administration and support services is being cut.
It’s unclear exactly how the authority will save $471 million in the area, although AHS issued a statement Thursday saying it was reviewing its management structure and freezing the wages for all non-unionized employees.
The authority has already said it will reduce paper use, cut travel and education spending and restrict cell phone charges.
“I am confident we have the capacity to bring our spending in line and to work towards a better health system,” chief executive Vicki Kaminski said.
But a union that represents about 25,000 health care professionals predicted the reductions to AHS budget will mean longer waits, more overcrowding and an increase in cancelled surgeries.
“Cuts mean pain and maybe even death,” said Elisabeth Ballermann, president of the Health Sciences Association of Alberta.
While Mandel is asking AHS to trim its bureaucracy, the budget shows his own department will spend 18 per cent more than last year.
The $13.7 million increase includes more money for communications, policy staff and a contigency for a reworked board of directors to oversee AHS.
Campbell said the government would fulfill existing pledges to open more continuing care and restorative beds as it attempts to relieve the pressure in overcrowded hospitals, but the $1.3 billion allocation for these services is less than last year.
The money set aside to compensate the province’s doctors will rise six per cent to $4.2 billion to keep pace over the budgeted amount this due to expected growth in service volumes and a hike in the fee schedule for physicians that was previously negotiated with the Alberta Medical Association.
While officials said services to patients will not be affected, the province’s primary care networks will be forced to use $75 million in accumulated surpluses to offset their costs this coming year as their budget are cut by a corresponding amount .
Campbell said Alberta’s health care system, which spends 19 per cent more per capita than the national average, needs to be more efficient.
“There will be no hospital bed closures, no cuts in funding for physician services and no de-insurance of services, “ Campbell said.
“There is room to achieve these cost reductions without disrupting the health care system or reducing care to patients.”
mmcclure@calgaryherald.com
With files from Keith Gerein, Edmonton Journal