Alberta’s Opposition NDP is asking the auditor general to investigate the province’s failed attempt to privatize community lab testing.
David Shepherd, the NDP’s health critic, says an independent analysis is needed, and that the United Conservative government can’t be trusted to transparently report what went wrong.
Last week, Health Minister Adriana LaGrange pulled the plug on the handover of community lab testing to private provider Dynalife after months of complaints of long wait times and service bottlenecks in Calgary and the southern region.
Under the deal, Dynalife operations will be taken over by Alberta Precision Laboratories, which is part of Alberta Health Services, the province’s health-care provider.
Alberta Precision Laboratories (APL) normally handles lab tests in hospitals and urgent care centres and in remote locations where there is no community lab testing available.
Dynalife has run lab testing in Edmonton and northern Alberta for more than two decades and expanded the service to the rest of the province late last year under contract with the province.
But in recent months, there have been concerns over long waits, sometimes weeks, to book appointments in Calgary and the surrounding area along with long queues in the waiting room and delays in getting results processed.
Alberta’s public labs step up testing efforts as Dynalife delays continue
LaGrange declined to say how much Alberta will pay Dynalife to take back assets and assume operations, saying those details are still being hashed out.
Shepherd said the secrecy around the cost shows the United Conservative government is hiding something from Albertans or has bought something without knowing the cost.