Alberta Includes $2B for Primary Health-Care System in 2023 Budget

Alberta Health Minister Jason Copping gives an update in Edmonton on Sept. 21, 2021. Jason Franson/The Canadian Press

Alberta’s United Conservative Party government announced today it will spend $2 billion on health care in the 2023 budget.

If passed, the budget allocation would be the highest investment the province has ever made directed to primary health care.

At a news conference on Feb. 21, Health Minister Jason Copping said the changes are necessary to alleviate strain on the health-care system.

“The past two years ICU capacity had been maxed out. Emergency Rooms have been stretched beyond capacity. More and more Albertans are struggling to find a family doctor, and our health care workers have been burning the candle at both ends,” he said.

In a news release on Feb. 21, the Alberta government said the funding would be directed to primary care networks, payments to family doctors, funding to strengthen and modernize primary health care, and investments to “help community-based physicians with information technology systems that will enhance continuity of care for patients.”

“The focus of our health care system needs to shift. If we can spend more time and money on primary care and preventative medicine, our health care system can become less dependent on emergency rooms and ever-increasing hospital capacity,” Copping said at the news conference.

Five months ago, the province launched Modernizing Alberta’s Primary Health Care System (MAPS), which included strategic and indigenous advisory panels that made a number of recommendations. The government says it has accepted those recommendations “in principle.”

The budget proposes $243 million in new funding over three years directed to primary health care. If the budget is passed, $125 million will be directed to implementing MAPS recommendations, and $40 million will be devoted to supporting primary care networks under the AMA agreement, a new physician agreement between doctors and the province.

An additional $27 million will be earmarked to provide more patients with a primary health professional, which could include a family doctor, nurse practitioner, pharmacist, or public health nurse.

Another $12 million will be spent on updating IT systems for community-based doctors.

Copping also said there are a number of MAPS recommendations directed towards indigenous Albertans, which would include supporting mobile health clinics on First Nations and Métis settlements, and addressing long-standing challenges faced by indigenous people when accessing primary health care.

MAPS recommendations included establishing an indigenous patient complaints investigator and a roster of elders who can provide cultural support.