The UCP government has ousted the entire board of Alberta Health Services for the second time since Danielle Smith became premier, the latest step in the province’s massive restructuring of the health system.
Health Minister Adriana LaGrange announced the AHS leadership overhaul on Friday by news release. Andre Tremblay will serve as the official administrator — a one-person board of directors — in addition to remaining the health agency’s interim CEO, a role the veteran provincial bureaucrat took on only a few weeks ago.
Earlier this week, the government announced the creation of Assisted Living Alberta, the fourth and final new Crown corporation to take over the health-care management role that AHS had singularly held.
It’s becoming four separate agencies: acute care (hospital oversight), primary care, long-term and continuing care, and mental health and addictions. However, AHS will remain as the manager of Alberta’s 106 government-owned hospitals.
Friday’s move was abrupt; a brief board meeting scheduled for the afternoon disappeared from the AHS website around the lunch hour.
But it’s similar to a mass board firing by Smith in late 2022, shortly after she became premier. Then, the province appointed John Cowell as the official administrator of AHS, to oversee some changes before the four-part dismantling of AHS was announced in 2023.
LaGrange’s ministry will lead the search for a permanent chief executive for AHS. Normally, that’s the board directors’ duty.
More to come