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The Wildrose Alliance and the operators of a private surgical clinic in Calgary are accusing the medical superboard of reneging on a deal with the facility, and demanding the health minister intervene to prevent it from closing.

The ongoing legal and financial fight between Alberta Health Services and the for-profit Health Resource Centre -- a private facility owned by Networc Health Inc. -- may finally crystallize next week when officials file new affidavits in court.

It's an intriguing battle over not only the health centre, but the role of private clinics in a publicly funded health-care system. And it has political parties drawing their battle lines on a health-care debate that could be a dominant issue in the next provincial election.

...

Smith said the medical board has broken its commitment to contract out up to 3,500 hip and knee surgeries a year at the health centre -- up from the current 1,000 or so.

"It would be absolutely devastating if this facility was closed down," Smith said Thursday at the health centre. "It's incumbent upon the health minister to intervene."

Dr. Tom Noseworthy, a health-policy specialist at the University of Calgary, said "the evidence shows" for-profit, private delivery doesn't improve public access to the system, nor is it cheaper or better quality. Private care should generally only be looked at to expand capacity in the health system when it's not available in the public realm, he said, but that won't be the case once the new surgical suites open at Foothills.

Smith and HRC maintain the facility can perform publicly funded surgeries "faster, better, cheaper" than the public model. "Under a publicly funded system, we don't think that patients care whether or not they're getting treated at a public hospital, or a private facility or a not-for-profit facility," she said.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/health/...425/story.html

Personally, I think contracting out public work to a private hospital and paying for it with public dollars isn't the way the two-tier system should work.

But on the other hand, government red tape and incompetence often turns a simple checkup into a 4 hour wait, and having a private clinic on contract for checkups, as well as major surgeries might help.