From the Liberal Caucus,

David Swann, Leader of the Official Opposition, has learned that yet another new clinic in Calgary will charge thousands of dollars for health care services.

A citizen in Calgary told Swann that he’s losing his family doctor because that doctor will be moving to a clinic called Provital Health and Wellness. Only patients who pay a yearly fee – $3500 the first year and $3000 every following year – at the new clinic will continue to be treated by their doctors.

“Every Alberta family needs a family doctor,” Swann says. “But should Alberta families have to pay $3000 a year or more for that privilege? In Ed Stelmach’s Alberta, it looks like the answer is yes.”

Provital is the latest clinic to follow this disturbing new business model, following Calgary’s Copeman clinic and others. Swann, who was once a practising physician, is concerned that more and more doctors, frustrated with the Stelmach administration’s incompetent handling of public health care, will be driven to these exclusive clinics. This developing trend makes it even harder for average Albertans to find family physicians.

“Given the acknowledged shortage of health care professionals in this province, it’s un-Albertan of the Premier to foster the creation of what amounts to exclusive private clinics – clinics that are, by the way, subsidized by the taxpayer, since these clinics still bill the province for medically necessary services.”

Limiting access with yearly fees creates a de facto two-tier health care system.

“Certainly these doctors have the right to offer extra services, some of them very useful to Albertans,” Swann says. “But every Albertan has the right, without paying extra fees, to see those doctors for services covered by taxpayer-funded Alberta Health Care, no matter what their economic status.”

What do you think about this issue?