Premier Danielle Smith says Alberta Health Services (AHS) is trying to get its money back after paying $49 million to an importer and a Turkish drug company for products it didn't receive.

The purchase arrangement for which AHS is trying to recoup money was the second iteration of an initial deal that did see some medication arrive.

The initial purchase agreement for five million bottles of children's painkillers, inked in 2022 amid a nationwide medication shortage, is a part of ongoing probes by the RCMP and the auditor general into provincial health procurement.

At an unrelated news conference on Wednesday, Smith told reporters that AHS is using legal avenues to try to recoup the money, abandoning its backup plan to obtain intravenous painkillers for money it had already paid.