Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, right, and Minister of Health Adriana LaGrange in Calgary on Feb. 19.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
Alberta’s health minister signed off on a proposal to send the province’s stockpile of children’s medication from Turkey to those in urgent need, indicating a preference for Ukraine, in part to save on storage costs, according to a letter obtained by The Globe and Mail.
Adriana LaGrange, in a letter dated Feb. 27, gave Alberta Health Services permission to strike a deal with Health Partners International of Canada (HPIC) to give away the province’s unwanted pain-relief medication, which has been in storage for about two years. The charity has a federal licence to handle donated medicine, Ms. LaGrange noted.
The Globe and Mail on Friday reported that Alberta was mulling a plan to ship 1.4 million bottles of acetaminophen and ibuprofen it imported from Turkey, as part of a $70-million deal Premier Danielle Smith announced in late 2022, to Ukraine. The government paid for five million bottles of medicine, but only 1.5 million bottles arrived. Alberta distributed just a fraction of its Turkish supply and stopped using some of it after health officials determined the acetaminophen could increase the risk of a life-threatening illness in neonatal patients when administered through feeding tubes.
Ms. LaGrange, in her letter, noted the medication has not been used since 2023 and AHS wrote off the remaining bottles.
“They have no value to AHS, and donating them will have no negative impact on AHS’ financial statements,” she wrote. “Donating them will result in a reduction of required warehouse storage space, which may result in savings for AHS.”
Alberta paid roughly $20.4-million for the 1.4 million bottles of acetaminophen and ibuprofen it is now looking to unload, according to government briefing notes obtained by The Globe.
Ms. Smith, when asked about the proposed donation at an unrelated news conference Friday, noted Ukraine is in the middle of a war.
“They have children who have fevers and don’t have medications, and we have agreements with Ukraine to help them,” she said. “If a child has a severe fever that’s not addressed, they can have seizures and they can have brain damage.”
Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February, 2022, eight years after the aggressor annexed Crimea and started a proxy war in Ukraine’s southeastern Donbas region. Ms. Smith, last September, said 70,000 refugees from Ukraine have come to Alberta since the war escalated. In Alberta, roughly 8 per cent of the population identified as having Ukrainian heritage in the 2021 census.
Ms. Smith said “a group” approached Alberta about transferring the medication to a war-torn area and the province agreed. Sam Blackett, her spokesman, did not acknowledge a message seeking details about Ms. Smith’s comment.
Lois Brown, the president of HPIC, said AHS approached her organization about a potential donation within the past month. HPIC and AHS, she said Friday, do not have an agreement in place.
HPIC typically facilitates donations from pharmaceutical manufacturers to developing countries or places suffering from a humanitarian crisis. HPIC has delivered $30-million worth of medicine to Ukraine over the last three years, Ms. Brown said.
Shipping costs are typically covered by the charity, a partner airline and other participants, she said. If a deal with Alberta proceeds, the province may have to chip in, Ms. Brown added.
Ms. LaGrange’s letter said her department will support the export approval process between Health Canada and HPIC.
“HPIC will oversee shipping logistics, which includes co-ordinating pickups directly from the AHS warehouse,” Ms. LaGrange wrote.
Jessi Rampton, a spokeswoman for Ms. LaGrange, did not acknowledge a message seeking comment. AHS did not respond to questions about Ms. LaGrange’s request.
Alberta estimates it will cost around $275,000 to ship the medicine, according to government briefing notes obtained by The Globe. The province estimates it will take six to eight weeks to ship the 512 pallets by sea.
The briefing documents also note the drugs expire in 2026, between January and March. In October, 2023, Health Minister Adriana LaGrange’s then-press secretary told The Globe the ibuprofen approved for hospitals expires in November, 2025.
Ms. LaGrange’s letter is addressed to Andre Tremblay, who the government installed as AHS’s sole administrator after terminating its previous chief executive and dismissing the board in January. Mr. Tremblay served as Ms. LaGrange’s deputy minister until the government assigned that role to another bureaucrat in February. The shakeup followed allegations, first reported in The Globe, of political interference in AHS’s contracting and procurement processes, to the benefit of private companies.
The RCMP, Alberta’s Auditor-General and a third party Ms. Smith appointed, are each investigating the allegations, which are tied in part to the deal to import medication from Turkey. AHS’s former CEO, Athana Mentzelopoulos, is also suing for $1.7-million in a wrongful dismissal suit. None of the allegations have been tested in court and Ms. LaGrange has repeatedly said she will file a statement of defence.
MHCare Medical, based in Edmonton, facilitated the original importation deal and, according to a letter AHS sent the company in December, has held $49.2-million in government money for “well over a year.”
Lawyers for MHCare and its owner, Sam Mraiche, have previously stated their clients have done no wrong and allegations or insinuations to the contrary are unjustified and unwarranted.
Health Canada authorized the original import deal, which the Premier pursued to ease the shortage of children’s analgesics amid a brutal cold and flu season. The federal agency is not typically involved when health products are donated, but the terms of the importation approval stipulated that any sale or use of the products outside Alberta required its approval, according to spokeswoman Marie-Pier Burelle. The agency said it is assessing an application related to exporting the medicine.