Alberta's Health Minister Tyler Shandro during Tuesday's press conference (Government of Alberta)

By Justin Goulet

Health Minister details job cuts at Alberta Health Services

Oct 13, 2020 | 10:41 AM

EDMONTON, AB – The provincial government is making major changes to Alberta Health Services.

It was announced Tuesday morning that about 11,000 jobs will be cut at AHS. There will be no job losses for nurses or for other front-line clinical staff, according to Health Minister Tyler Shandro.

“I can confidentially say, the government’s direction is that there will be no job losses for nurses or front-line clinical staff,” Shandro said.

“Any reductions must be managed through vacant positions and existing initiatives like operational best practices, which is a program that, by the way, was started by the NDP in 2015.”

Shandro explained that about 9,700 cuts will come from outsourcing and contracting out in sectors such as laundry, community labs, housekeeping and food services.

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“It’s important to keep in mind that 68 percent of laundry services in Alberta and, if we look at the north of the province, 70 percent of community lab services are currently delivered by the private sector under contract,” Shandro said.

“AHS has also been given permission to develop business cases for contracting out environmental services like housekeeping in 2022 and food preparation, for consideration in 2023.”

Both business cases will be subject to review and approval by the provincial government

The changes are expected to save the province $600 million every year.

Shandro said contracting out these services allows AHS “to get the best value from private partners and focus on patient care and meeting community health care needs”.

Requests for proposals for the affected services will be issued before the end of the year.

He added that non-clinical and back-office operations will be streamlined, as well.

“This includes making more efficient things like distribution, how they manage inventory, and how they deal with staff scheduling and overtime,” Shandro stated.

The cuts follow an AHS performance review. Results of the review were released on February 3, 2020 and included 57 recommendations and 72 saving opportunities to improve the quality and long-term sustainability of health services in the province.

AHS was asked to develop a 30-day plan for initiatives that could start right away, and a long-term implementation plan.

Shandro said he’s directed the AHS board to complete a full review of senior AHS executives, to be completed by the end of the fiscal year. A minimum of 100 management positions will be eliminated.

Tuesday morning’s press conference can be viewed below.