Alberta spending $20M on women's health research while advocates call for women's health strategy

Adriana LaGrange, Minister of Health for Alberta, makes a health care announcement in Calgary on Dec. 21, 2023. Todd Korol)

Alberta's health minister says she's doubling the mandated funding for women's health in the province.

On Friday, Adriana LaGrange is scheduled to announce $20 million in funding over two years for the Alberta Women's Health Foundation. 

"I had the mandate to have $10 million allocated to women's health and to research, and I really felt that was inadequate," LaGrange told CTV News Edmonton Thursday.

The grant will support research on cervical cancer, heart disease and other common health conditions.

The province said that funding will also help recruit researchers and support advocacy and awareness for women's health.

Bobbie Jo Hawkes is the manager for the Edmonton Zone Medical Staff Association (ZMSA), which represents 1,900 physicians in the Edmonton area.

She is also a chair on the association's women's health committee, which has been working for the past year to identify and advocate for strategies to improve women's health-care services. 

"We very quickly recognized that the health system was not originally designed with women in mind, because women were not part of clinical trials until the last 30 years," Hawkes said. "So overall, we need a women's health strategy that reimagines how the health system considers women."

Because women's health is "severely underfunded" for research, Hawkes said the grant money is a good start.

But, she added, it needs to be followed up with the funds to start solving the problems facing the province's female population.

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According to the women's health committee, some of the most pressing issues are poor menopause care, difficulty accessing obstetrician and gynecologist services and period poverty.

In 2021, the Alberta Government gave United Way $260,000 for the Period Promise pilot project, an ongoing initiative to supply students in "vulnerable" communities with free menstrual products.

"I don't want it to make it sound as though the government is not doing anything for period poverty," Hawkes said. "It's more that more is needed."

Other issues include a lack of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection testing for women in correctional facilities, as well as the need for medical management of miscarriages and abortions.

"There's a lot of things that the minister could focus on," Hawkes said. "That's why our number one key piece is let's at least start with a strategy and start to think broadly."

LaGrange said a women's health care strategy would have to wait until after information and data comes back from the research Friday's announced funding will support.

"Until we have that information, it's really hard to say we will do this specific thing," she said.

Contraceptives

Hawkes said Albertan women also need access to free birth control.

In a February letter to the province, the ZMSA argues that contraception is essential to women's reproductive health and cuts costs on the health system associated with unwanted pregnancies.

The letter was sent after the Alberta government said it was opting out of a national pharmacare program giving all Canadians with a health-care card access to free diabetes medication and birth control.

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LaGrange defended that decision Thursday, saying Albertans "already have a lot of access right across the province."

"We provide over 5,000 drugs in Alberta," she said. "And in the area of birth control, in the area of health reproduction, we know that there are opportunities that we already provide."

The Alberta Drug Benefit List includes more than 25 brands of birth control pills and a number of intrauterine devices that are covered by the Government of Alberta.

According to the health minister's office, income support programs and government-sponsored non-group coverage can also help qualified individuals access.

Hawkes said there are gaps in that coverage, citing a study released in 2024 that shows around 17 per cent of women in Alberta are not covered by Alberta Health Services or by private insurance. 

The Alberta Adult Health Benefit and the Alberta Child Health Benefit do offer prescription coverage for low-income individuals, but the ZMSA said the thresholds are too low to cover many women.

"Women are struggling to buy menstrual products when their household earns less than 40,000 per year. So we know that if they're struggling to buy menstrual products, they're probably also struggling to buy birth control," she added.

LaGrange said the province is working with the federal government to improve access in Alberta and expand coverage to address any remaining gaps. 

Friday's announcement will also include $6 million to expand Alberta's Newborn Screening Program to cover four more conditions.

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Chelan Skulski