NDP promises Hospital upgrades
Miriam Ostermann
Times Associate Editor
After decades of deserted promises and relentless efforts to advocate for imperative upgrades to the Strathmore hospital, the NDP government vowed to allocate several millions of dollars to an emergency room expansion.
Minister of Health Sarah Hoffman directed a letter on Dec. 16, 2015 to Strathmore-Brooks MLA Derek Fildebrandt, who championed for the project in the legislature since taking office, stating that an estimated $2.8 million will be made available through the Infrastructure Maintenance Program (IMP) for Alberta Health Services (AHS) to forge ahead with an expansion.
The announcement was welcomed among local officials, but similar assurances in the past by previous governments, continue to spread doubt about the reality of the promised funds.
“This wouldn’t be the first, second, or third time that we’ve heard this will happen, and I’m cautiously optimistic that this will go forward, but we’ve been promised and disappointed too many times to really be sure,” said Fildebrandt.
“We’ve been banging away pretty hard trying to get answers out of the government, and so far we haven’t gotten much clarity at all. But this letter is the first real positive sign in some time that we could see some action on our local health care infrastructure. I’m certainly biased because I’m the MLA for Strathmore, but I think that the second busiest emergency room in rural Alberta… should be at the top of the list.”
The Strathmore hospital is recognized as the second busiest emergency room in rural Alberta – seeing upwards of 30,000 patients annually – and hasn’t received any modification or expansion since its construction in 1985. The previous government assured local officials that funding would be made available for improved parking, resources for seniors and handicapped individuals, and major hospital improvements. However, such promises never came to fruition and frustrations continued to grow.
According to Timothy Wilson, press secretary with the office of the minister of health, AHS will be utilizing the funds to undertake an expansion of the emergency department, diagnostic imaging, lab services, pharmacy and home care.
Hoffman’s letter indicates the project is currently in the planning stages and is expected to commence in the 2016-2017 year. The letter also indicates that AHS identified major development of the Strathmore Health Centre as one of their many priority health capital projects, however, it remains in the early stages of planning at this point. The government is finalizing a business case for the Bassano Continuing Care and Health Centre project, and plans to raise the matter of a dialysis centre in Brooks with AHS – additional issues Fildebrandt raised in the legislature.
The MLA had received a tour of the hospital previously and spent some time discussing the conditions with local doctors. While he said it proves difficult to attract additional physicians to rural Alberta, he felt Strathmore’s doctors were committed to their jobs, patients, and the community. However, his office extended an invitation to the minister of health to tour the local health care infrastructure projects in the riding first hand.
“I appreciate that the province is broke – the province has no money – so it’s a matter of prioritizing spending,” he said. “My impression was that there were a lot of very busy hardworking individuals working in a space that appears to be significantly out of date and badly in need of an upgrade. There are portables that have been attached to the building for well over a decade that people are expected to work in, that I would loathe to put my own employees in. So it’s extremely busy and crowded… I don’t know how to describe it.”
While he added that the nosedive of the economy and a limitation of funds requires expectations to remain reasonable, he will continue to push for front-line health priorities in Strathmore.