Airdrie and area residents are being asked to complete a survey by Alberta Health Services (AHS) about the state of health care in the community. The move comes after months of lobbying the provincial government by the Airdrie Health Foundation (AHF), according to Mayor Peter Brown.
“The whole process by which we are here has been driven by the community,” Brown said. “It’s really important that the community take the time to fill out the (survey) because we want to make sure that AHS is aware of everything that people in this community think or know we need.”
Airdrie is currently without 24-hour emergency health care because the Airdrie Regional Health Centre that provides urgent care is only open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. As a result, residents must rely on facilities in Calgary or Didsbury for after-hours care.
The AHF was founded three years ago but only became a foundation in October 2013. Its members include Brown, MLA Rob Anderson, physicians and medical professionals from the community, and concerned citizens.
The survey, which can be completed online, is accompanied by a workbook that residents must read to be able to answer the questions, according to Brown.
“It is complicated but I would encourage everyone to follow it to the Nth degree,” Brown said.
What residents won’t find in the survey is a question about building a hospital in Airdrie, according to Brown.
“What the experts in our community say we need is a health centre,” Brown said. “That’s where you can have a place to go if you’re too ill to go home, they can keep you overnight. It wouldn’t be a hospital per se. Just building a hospital out here is not the answer to our challenges.”
Instead, residents will be asked if they would support building a health centre that includes two “hubs,” one for 24-hour urgent care and the other focused on community health, including mental health services, social services and seniors’ health.
“I want to make sure that people in our community have a place to go if a loved one is sick and it’s 11 o’clock at night, that you don’t have to risk your life going into Calgary, that there’s a medical professional here that can look after your needs. That’s ultimately what we want to do,” Brown said.
The absence of 24-hour emergency health care in Airdrie impacts more than just residents of the city; Beiseker Mayor Ray Courtman said residents of his village also feel the strain of having limited access to health care.
“Right now it’s kind of a hodge-podge of care (in Beiseker)”, he said. “When there is an emergency here in the village we do have a first responder medical team of volunteers and then an ambulance is called. That ambulance could end up taking the patient to Three Hills, possibly Drumheller and ultimately to Red Deer and then be transferred back into the city of Calgary. We have people going all over the countryside out here.”
“We have one family doctor who comes out twice a week,” Courtman said. “So we can be ill on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
Courtman said he thinks the survey is “way over due. “
“All these preliminary discussions and studies and surveys should have been done many years back,” he said. “They say that they couldn’t have predicted the huge population growth in Airdrie but obviously the population growth is there and they need to streamline the process and get this new health facility started. We need the building.”
Julie Kerr, senior operating officer for Community and Rural Mental Health in the Calgary Zone with AHS said the survey is being done in order to address the issues that come with Airdrie’s population growth.
“We know that we’ve got work to do in terms of making sure that our services meet the needs of the community both now and into the future,” Kerr said.
According to Kerr, the survey is intended to collect information and feedback from residents in the Airdrie area who may rely on the city’s healthcare system. The results will be an important tool for AHS, she said.
“We’ll look at any themes that emerge (from the survey results) and see if we got it right. Does this fit with people’s understanding of what the needs are of people in the community and what they’d like to see in terms of health in Airdrie and the surrounding area? And are there things we haven’t considered in the proposed approach that people think we need to pay attention to?” she said.
A timeline for when Airdrie residents might see improvements to the city’s healthcare services aren’t set at this time, according to Kerr.
“I think the planning will be ongoing,” she said. “We already have things that are underway to try to use existing infrastructure and existing services. Then there may be larger projects that may involve capital planning that I couldn’t give you timelines on because that’s a larger process that usually involves people outside of our zone planning.”
However, for his part, Brown said he’s optimistic change is coming for Airdrie’s access to healthcare.
“We’re very hopeful now that we’ll have something pulled together before the beginning of 2015,” Brown said. “It’s a very exciting time as it relates to health care and securing some of the things a growing community like Airdrie needs to properly service the health needs of a city of our size.”
The survey will be available online at albertahealthservices.ca until midnight on Nov. 21. As of Nov. 19, 350 people had gone online to enter their responses, according to AHS.
