| The Alberta government says it will work with its new regional health boards to address conflicts of interest within the health care system, but some critics say the move is too little too late.
Earlier this month, Alberta’s auditor general stated that the province should strengthen the rules forcing those working within the health care system to disclose any interests in private health ventures to avoid conflicts of interest.
Such criticisms have been levelled at the government for years by opposition leaders and those opposed to Bill 11, but the auditor general’s report has spurred the Klein government into action.
"We are going to be working with health regions in looking at the auditor general’s recommendations," says Alberta Health and Wellness spokesperson Howard May.
He adds that there is no timeline for the initiatives to be implemented, partly because the newly elected regional health board members are just starting their jobs.
However, Alberta’s New Democrats say the government should have dealt with the issue long ago, and it is still moving too slowly on the issue.
"We’ve pointed out tons of examples... that could be a problem," says New Democrat spokesperson Simon Kiss. "In our view, the time for consultation is over. It’s time to act."
Kiss says the government touted its conflict of interest guidelines for regional health boards during the election campaign, but those guidelines never applied to senior staff within the health care system.
The NDP released a two-year-old Calgary Health Region memo regarding the allocation of cataract surgeries from its chief of ophthalmology, Dr. Peter Huang, addressed to himself as part of a private company seeking those allocations.
Although the province says Huang had no input into those allocations and therefore was not in a conflict, Kiss says such situations illustrate the need to draw a line between those working within the public and the private systems.
"We pointed this out during (debate over) Bill 11," Kiss says. "Back then they ignored it. Now the auditor general has seconded it. What more does it take?"
Gillian Steward, co-author of a report on private health care for the Parkland Institute, says she is pleased the auditor general recognized the issue, but he should have gone farther.
"Disclosure is one thing, but you need to have clear regulations that spell out senior officers should not have private (health care) interests," Steward says. "I don’t know why that isn’t already in place."
Current regulations prevent senior regional health officials from participating directly in decisions allocating private surgeries, but Steward says that doesn’t mean those officials have no influence on the system. She argues that the only way to eliminate that influence is strong conflict of interest guidelines.
"Even if nobody has their fingers in the till... the appearance of things is that a conflict may exist," Steward says.
"...the auditor general (bringing it up) is great, but next time I would like to see him go farther and come down harder." |
