Smith’s ideas about alternative medicine and pensions keep coming back

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Premier Danielle Smith often plunks controversial beliefs on the back shelf when she faces opposition.

But we’re learning fast that these ideas never go away. When the time seems right, back they come.

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Smith has voiced mistrust of traditional medicine. Now the government is reshaping the role of doctors under the guise of system reorganization.

One of the “pillars” of the new health-care system will be a specific authority for primary care.

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The UCP is loading up this pillar with nurse practitioners and, who knows, maybe naturopaths.

In both cases, primary care doctors are worried and offended, saying nurses aren’t fully able to provide primary care, and naturopaths have no place in the primary system at all.

But the government forges on. There’s a new pay deal for the nurses and their private practices.

Nurse practitioners, with their master’s degrees and extensive experience, are extremely valuable.

But Dr. Paul Parks, president of the Alberta Medical Association, said the government’s focus should be on supporting family doctors and their practices, rather than bringing people with less training into primary care.

“Putting it bluntly, nurse practitioners cannot replace family medical specialists,” Parks said.

Health Minister Adriana LaGrange threw another jolt into the system when she met Monday with Dr. Rob Roth, president of the College of Naturopathic Doctors of Alberta.

“It was great to meet with Dr. Rob Roth . . . to discuss the role they play in primary care,” LaGrange said.

“People visit naturopathic practitioners for various health-related purposes, including primary care, overall well-being and treatment of illnesses.”

Dr. Jon Meddings, former dean of the Cummings School of Medicine at U of C, said LaGrange’s comment was “simply terrifying.

“This (naturopathy) is not primary care. How a minister of health could even vaguely insinuate that this has a role in our health system is awful.

“Belief in things that are not there seems to define our government these days.”

Naturopathy focuses on treating chronic illness without drugs and “balancing” the body to promote self-healing. In Alberta, it is a recognized self-regulating profession, but services are not covered by public health insurance.

Talk of naturopaths directly involved in the primary care system is something new. LaGrange obviously wants her words to stick. She referred to primary care twice in the same tweet.

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The government wants more providers in the system. Everybody does, as long as they’re fully qualified, the right people for the job and covered by public insurance.

At the same time, according to reports Tuesday, some nurses could lose their jobs as functions shift out of AHS.

This government doesn’t like or trust big public sector power centres.

That’s one reason AHS will no longer be the dominant health authority. It will be only one of four.

Similarly, doctors and their Alberta Medical Association form a powerful and influential power centre. The physicians had great credibility with the public after the government cancelled their pay contract in 2020.

The entry of new players — the nurse practitioners, especially — will tend to dilute the doctors’ role as sole providers of primary care, and even put the two groups in competition.

The government likes to call the overall health reform decentralization, but it sounds more like fragmentation into smaller, more manageable groups.

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Another long-term Smith plan, the Alberta pension, went dormant during the May election. Now it’s back in force and no amount of public opposition or pile of negative polls deters the UCP.

Bill 2, currently before the legislature, says there can’t be a deal with Ottawa unless a referendum is held.

That sounds reassuring. But as the NDP keeps saying, there’s no guarantee in this bill that a referendum would be binding on the government.

Overall, the bill seems to give the UCP a way to lose a referendum, but return to the pension project later.

That’s what Smith’s ideas do. They keep coming back.

Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald

X: @DonBraid

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