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A Ministry of Health spokeswoman said Friday no one could comment as the matter is before the court. This week, CUPE filed in Regina Court of Queen's Bench an application to appeal its unsuccessful access to information request. The union had applied to the Ministry of Health in March 2014 for a copy of the contract between 3sHealth and K-Bro. The ministry responded saying the record didn't exist. So CUPE took the matter to the Information and Privacy Commissioner for review. According to the court documents, the commissioner concluded "the Ministry of Health had made a reasonable effort to locate the record" and made no recommendation.

In its application, CUPE maintained the Ministry of Health has the record - "even though it may be in the hands of a related third party being 3sHealth and/or a regional health authority" - and hasn't made a reasonable effort to locate it. Even if the ministry doesn't have custody of the record, it had an obligation to refer the request to the appropriate government body or local authority, CUPE adds in the document. The action seeks an order from the court compelling disclosure of the contract. The application is currently scheduled to come before the Court of Queen's Bench on April 9.

That provider, K-Bro Linen Systems, has been used for years by AHS to provide medical linen in the Calgary and Edmonton regions, and the health authority planned to expand the contract to include the rest of the province. The executives noted other health regions, including some in Saskatchewan, B.C., Ontario and Quebec, had gone the outsourcing route. But Health Minister Sarah Hoffman said she personally intervened late last year, telling AHS to look at other options since the strategy ran afoul of NDP policy to prevent further privatization of health services. The plan would have led to the elimination of 130 to 140 full-time equivalent jobs at AHS.

"If you want to change the status quo, you should be able to present a business case, and I asked for evidence ... not unlike other decisions I have put on hold or cancelled," Hoffman said in an interview Tuesday. "It lacks understanding of the current government that we want to make sure we consider a variety of options and that was one of the reasons I asked them to stop with the privatization agenda on this." Hoffman's stance was similar to her controversial decision late last year to abruptly cancel an AHS plan to outsource all medical testing in the Edmonton region to a private company. Such moves were cited by former AHS CEO Vickie Kaminski as examples of NDP micromanagement and ideological decision-making that led, in part, to her resignation earlier this year.

Hoffman declined to provide any details on her discussions with Kaminski, but said new AHS CEO Verna Yiu has been "very excited" to look at alternatives. She said the previous Progressive Conservative government had basically forced AHS into privatizing linen by refusing to provide capital funding for anything considered a support service. She suggested her government is willing to put money into such areas, but it is still unclear how those projects will stack up against competing demands for new hospitals, care facilities and a medical testing lab. "Pretending laundry isn't a critical part of patient care, I don't buy that," Hoffman said.

The linen services department posted a disabling injury rate of 12.06 as of January this year, well above the AHS average rate of 3.01. Though the documents declare AHS to be at a "critical point," executive Mauro Chies tried to downplay the concern. "I don't think we are at critical threshold point right now, but it is on our radar," said Chies, vice-president of clinical support services. AHS is looking at a number of infrastructure options, with a decision expected late this year, Chies said. One of those options is a system of four hubs that would likely be located in Lethbridge, Grande Prairie, Ponoka and one north central community, such as Athabasca. He suggested the construction bill could come in well below estimates quoted in the documents, because AHS is looking at using older warehouse sites already owned by the government, if possible. The new sites would likely include a high level of automation, which could reduce staffing needs about 50 per cent.