News/Canada/Edmonton

Confirmed measles cases in the Edmonton region have public health officials issuing a warning about the potential risk of exposure. In a public health advisory issued late Sunday, Alberta Health Services said cases have been confirmed in the Edmonton region, including two instances when the highly contagious disease could have spread to others at local medical facilities.The advisory said people who were at the Stollery Children's Hospital's emergency department between March 14 at 10 p.m. and March 15 at 12:30 a.m. may have been exposed.Anyone who was at the Belle Rive Medicentres Family Health Care Clinic in northeast Edmonton on March 12 between 2:15 p.m. and about 5:15 p.m. is also at risk of exposure, Alberta Health Services cautioned. The advisory is the latest in a string of public ...

When Alberta's United Conservative government contracted out community medical lab testing to a private company in December 2022, it said it would save tens of millions of dollars.Two weeks before that contract with DynaLife Medical Labs was set to take effect, the company told the province it needed additional funding.Less than three months later, DynaLife's owners said the company was insolvent and needed an additional $70 million. They soon asked the province to buy DynaLife, which it ultimately did at a cost of almost $100 million.These revelations come from documents obtained by CBC News through freedom of information requests, including Alberta Health emails and briefing notes prepared for Premier Danielle Smith and health ministers Jason Copping and Adriana LaGrange.The documents fi...

Alberta Health Services alleges the wrongful dismissal suit of the organization's former CEO is "groundless" and an attempt to extract a larger severance payment.In a statement of defence filed Friday in Edmonton's Court of King's Bench, the provincial health agency says it terminated former CEO Athana Mentzelopoulos because she wasn't fulfilling her duties.The claim says Mentzelopoulos's lawsuit in response to her January termination is "ill-founded, groundless and vexatious."Mentzelopoulos, a former Alberta government employee who has served as deputy minister of finance, filed the suit against AHS and Health Minister Adriana LaGrange last month.She claims she was fired two days before she was scheduled to meet with Alberta's auditor general about surgical contracts she says had links to...

Health Minister Adriana LaGrange is alleging the former CEO of Alberta Health Services was unwilling and unable to implement the government's plan to break up the health authority,  became "infatuated" with her internal investigation into private surgical contracts and made "incendiary and inaccurate allegations about political intrigue and impropriety" before she was fired in January. The claims are contained in the minister's statement of defence filed Thursday in Edmonton Court of King's Bench.The document denies allegations made by Athana Mentzelopoulos, the former CEO, who filed a $1.7 million wrongful dismissal lawsuit against LaGrange and Alberta Health Services last month. The claim, which contains allegations of political interference from a staff member in the office of Premier D...

The Alberta government wants to cut more than $400 million in the fees it pays to doctors, according to a confidential memo obtained by The Canadian Press.The Feb. 18 memo, sent by Alberta Medical Association head Dr. Shelley Duggan to member physicians, says Alberta's health ministry seeks cuts to more than 800 physician billing codes to save $400 million because of budget pressures.Those codes lay out how much money is paid for specific procedures, sometimes based on the amount of time that a doctor spends with a patient."What has become clear in the last few months is that Alberta Health is looking to address its budget shortfalls through the physician services budget," Duggan writes."While we hope Alberta Health will reconsider its current approach, we wanted to advise members that it'...

Alberta RCMP have launched an investigation into Alberta Health Services (AHS) and the allegations of political interference and potential conflicts of interest within its procurement practices.In a statement Thursday, RCMP confirmed that the preliminary review of a complaint received on Feb. 6 has now moved into a formal investigation."Following a review, the RCMP has begun an investigation into the matter. As this is an ongoing investigation, no further details are available at this time," the statement said.On Feb. 12, the former CEO of the provincial health authority, Athana Mentzelopoulos, filed a $1.7-million wrongful dismissal lawsuit against AHS and the province.In her claim, Mentzelopoulos alleged she was fired in part because she'd launched an investigation and forensic audit int...

A northern Alberta town is losing its only family doctor clinic and officials are trying to find solutions before the doors close for good at the end of May.The Wembley Medical Clinic was opened in 2021. It's the only family doctor clinic in the town of Wembley, Alta., about 23 kilometres west of Grande Prairie.A notice of practice closure was posted on social media Feb. 12, explaining that one of the clinic's doctors was moving and the other was unable to take over ownership or practice at the clinic due to a College of Physicians and Surgeons practice permit restriction.According to Wembley town council, the community of roughly 1,400 was without family doctor coverage for about three decades before the clinic opened and now residents face losing it again. "The last two or three weeks, I...

A former chief judge of the Provincial Court of Manitoba will lead an investigation into the procurement practices of Alberta Health and the province's health authority.Christopher McPherson, deputy minister of Jobs, Economy and Trade, announced in a news release Monday afternoon that Raymond E. Wyant, who fully retired as a judge last year, will lead the third-party investigation into health contracts.Wyant's work will begin immediately and he will deliver an interim written report by May 30 and final written report and recommendations by June 30. The final report and recommendations will be posted on the province's website, the news release states.Among the questions Wyant will seek to answer, according to the investigation's terms of reference, is whether Alberta Health and Alberta Heal...