Editor:
Albertans need to be aware of how endangered our public services are to privatization by Danielle Smith as premier.
Only this year, she and her government handed over 66 per cent of all Provincial Precision Laboratory (APL) testing, formerly an Alberta Healthcare public service, to DynaLIFE, a private healthcare organization which started as Dynacare Kasper Medical Laboratories in Edmonton in the 1980s and was acquired in 2002 by American-based Laboratory Corporation of America.
The extent of this provincial gift, consisting of approximately 50 million tests per year, is generated from the community and was transferred to DynaLIFE under contract to AHS on Dec 5, 2022.
So now, DynaLIFE Medical Labs are your for-profit service for appointments, laboratory testing, collation of information and provision of results. In the meantime, the UCP government is spending Albertan’s tax dollars on advertisements extolling the improvement of health services in Alberta.
This, even though since 2018 Alberta Precision Laboratories, as a part of Alberta Healthcare Services, has delivered seamless and accessible services with glitch-free appointments, even through the long COVID-19 years. Now, APL’s services are confined to hospitals only.
The rationale for this hand-over of 66 per cent of Albertan’s laboratory services to DynaLIFE is that it would “provide more for less”.
The question here is who will get the “more” – DynaLIFE, our new for-profit Alberta lab with their American partner, or the Albertan citizen and taxpayer?
And what will be privatized next?
What is to prevent a Smith-led government from resurrecting Jason Kenney’s scheme to privatize Alberta’s parks?
After all, there is a lot of land out there that could be making more money for some enterprising entrepreneur.
Heather and Alan MacFadyen,
Canmore, Alberta
