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How to improve the health system, including the role of private providers, was the focus of a symposium Wednesday night at the University of Alberta that drew together representatives from four of the province’s political parties along with a handful of researchers.

In front of a crowd of about 75 people, Liberal MLA David Swann spoke about how Alberta is receiving only mediocre results for some of the highest health-care spending in the country.

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He said the problem is that the system is oriented too heavily toward “helping people after they break” rather than efforts at preventing disease and injury before they happen. In that and other ways, he said the system often treats patients as a secondary concern.

“We have to ask, is the health system serving the people and families or is it serving the professionals?” he said.

New Alberta Party Leader Stephen Mandel, who served for eight months as health minister in the Jim Prentice government, told the audience about the need to find more efficient and effective ways of doing things, despite the inevitable opposition such ideas always face.