The level of health care you receive depends on which hospital you happen to walk into, according to a report released by a think tank.
“I think the report confirms what people have always expected,” said Nadeem Esmail of the Fraser Institute. “There is variability in the health care system, the quality and safety of health care is not consistent across the province.”
But there is one big part of the report missing — the names of the hospitals.
“There is a significant improvement in terms of the ability of patients to make an informed decision about health care when the data is out there,” he said. “The problem with this report card is the provincial government has chosen to not allow hospital (names) to be published along side their results.”
The report said one hospital has an injury rate for newborns more than four times the provincial average, another has post-medical care infection rates five times higher than the average for Alberta hospitals.
A B.C. version of the report includes the names of hospitals.
