EDMONTON - Alberta's doctors and nurses say they have questions and concerns about the government's plan to off-load underperforming hospitals to third-party operators.

Danielle Larivee, a vice-president at the United Nurses of Alberta, said nurses are “very alarmed” by hospital transfers she said could negatively affect care and drive critical health-care workers from the province.

Like Parks, Larivee said the worry is the restructuring will lead to more bureaucracy and less co-ordination across the system.

“We’re not seeing any evidence at all to support the idea that this is about improving access to care, about improving services or even about saving money,” said Larivee in an interview.

“If we’re not saving money and not making care better, why are we doing it?”