A new agreement between Alberta Health Services, DynaLIFE Medical Labs and Alberta Precision Laboratories that will provide non-urgent hospital lab services in the province will improve quality and service while saving taxpayers money, says Alberta Health Minister Jason Copping.
The Opposition NDP calls the move bad for public health in the province.
Announced Thursday, the new contract was finalized on June 1 and will come into effect on Dec. 5.
Under the new service agreement, DynaLIFE will operate patient service centres and mobile collection facilities in urban centres and large rural communities, including in Calgary, Edmonton, Red Deer, Cochrane, Okotoks and St. Albert.
Alberta Precision Laboratories, a subsidiary of Alberta Health Services, will continue to operate labs in acute care hospitals and will provide lab services in small rural and remote communities.
“This agreement expands capacity and saves Albertans money while securing existing jobs for all our lab workers,” Copping said in a press release issued Thursday.
“Partnering with DynaLIFE is an innovative solution that will advance laboratory medicine over the long-term and build on the success of our current lab system.”
The new agreement will save the province between $18 million and $36 million per year, he said.
Mauro Chies is interim president and chief executive officer of Alberta Health Services.
“Contracting high-volume community and non-urgent, routine hospital lab work will allow Alberta Precision Laboratories to focus on serving the laboratory needs of acute care hospitals, along with the specialized testing, research and innovation that is critical to the future of health care in areas such as genetics and genomics, transfusion and transplantation medicine, molecular pathology and public health testing and surveillance,” Chies said in the press release.
David Shepherd is the NDP health critic.
“Albertans would have more testing capacity if the UCP had focused on strengthening and investing in our public health-care system,” Shepherd said in a release. “Instead, they continue to undermine it by diverting public dollars to profitable companies and their shareholders.
“The UCP cancelled the Edmonton Superlab in the midst of construction, stopping a state-of-the-art testing and research facility from being built in Alberta.”
The Friends of Medicare advocacy group calls the new contract bad news.
“This government has continuously demonstrated that they will always prioritize profits over patients, and today’s announcement was no different,” executive director Chris Gallaway said in a release.
“Health-care policy decisions must be based on what’s best for patients, not what's most lucrative for private, for-profit providers and their shareholders.”
Alberta Health spokesperson Steve Buick told Great West Media that patients shouldn’t see any negative impacts under the change.
“There should actually be some increases in service levels for patients, but it will depend on the exact location,” said Buick. “DynaLIFE will be upgrading and expanding collection sites in a number of places, so depending on exactly where you are patients may actually see a higher level of service out of this. And there will certainly be no services reduced.”
DynaLIFE Medical Labs has 1,300 employees and has its main testing facility in Edmonton, according to its website.
