The Health Resources Centre, located in Calgary's former Grace Hospital, is a privately owned clinic that performs publicly funded operations. (CBC)

The viability of a health-care delivery model in Alberta is under scrutiny as a Calgary-based private clinic faces bankruptcy.

The province contracts the Health Resources Centre, located in the former Grace Hospital in the northwest, to perform about 900 hip, knee, foot and ankle surgeries every year.

Cambrian Group of Companies has applied for a bankruptcy order against the clinic, which is owned by Networc Health. Cambrian alleges it's owed $65 million.

On Monday, Alberta Health Services succeeded in getting a court to appoint an interim receiver so the clinic could stay open and continue operating.

"The problem here isn't the inability of the facility to deliver services they're supposed to provide," said Herb Emery, economics professor at the University of Calgary. "This isn't an issue of health-care delivery but an issue involving the company that delivers the service."

Emery said HRC's problems are germane to any private business and are not tied directly to their health-care delivery model.

"The difficulty is that they have tried to expand into [a] new space," said Emery, who added that the Health Resources Centre operated for more than a decade in their original facility without any particular problems except an increasing lack of space.

But Alberta Liberal Leader David Swann, who is also a medical doctor, said the financial troubles at the privately owned surgical facility shows that the province's model of contracting work to private clinics does not work.

Swann said the province should now be looking to buy back the former Grace Hospital facility.

A bankruptcy hearing for HRC will be held next week when the interim receiver order could be extended or withdrawn.