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UPDATE: Mayor and concerned Airdronians speak out on Urgent Care closure

"We encourage everyone to write to their MLA and to the health minister because this can't keep going on with the lack of health care and now seeing the closures, it's just not okay for our community," said Michelle Bates, executive director of Airdrie Health Foundation.
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The Airdrie Urgent Care Centre will be close weekend nights for the next eight weeks.

As of July 22, Airdrie’s Urgent Care Centre (UCC) will be closed Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 10 p.m. until 7 a.m. the following morning for approximately eight weeks, due to a gap in physician coverage. 

According to the City of Airdrie, the closure will leave 80,000 local residents, plus additional members of the community living in Crossfield, north Calgary, and the surrounding Rocky View County, without access to medical care within close proximity. 

“This is completely unacceptable,” said Mayor Peter Brown in a press release. “We have been advocating to the provincial government for years for expanded health care services for our city, yet here we are moving backwards without 24-hour services, seven days a week for our residents and neighbouring communities.” 

The Airdrie City Council has been advocating for expanded health services in Airdrie for over a decade through meetings with health ministers, deputy ministers, and local MLAs. Brown and health minister Jason Copping recently toured the over-crowded UCC earlier this year, where the minister made a verbal commitment to support renovations of the care facility. 

However, as of press time, there has been no official commitment made by the province. 

“I want to thank those health care professionals that do such great work in our community,” said Brown in the press release. “This certainly isn’t a reflection of the quality of care they provide. This is about Alberta Health Services and our provincial leaders not making health care a priority for Airdrie and the other municipalities affected by this physician shortage.” 

Those with concerns regarding access to health care services in Airdrie and the surrounding area can reach out to Airdrie-East MLA Angela Pitt and Alberta’s Minister of Health Jason Copping.

Update July 22 at 2:35 p.m.

Michelle Bates, the executive director of the Airdrie Health Foundation is devastated about the weekend nightly closures of the UCC. 

"This is one thing that we worked so hard to get [and] advocate for urgent care to be open 24/7 and we finally succeeded in April of 2017," she said. "Now to be in this situation, we're devastated." 

Bates said the Alberta government has made decisions that have caused many physicians and nurses to seek employment in different provinces. 

"It's those decisions that we feel [has] directly impacted what's happening here today...they're not really listening to the health care staff or the front line staff," she said. "The government needs to start listening and working with health care staff instead of working against them." 

As of press time, Airdrie-East MLA Angela Pitt did not provide a statement when contacted, but referred to her social media for updates. Alberta Minister of Health Jason Copping did not respond to attempts to contact as of press time. 

Bates started the Airdrie Health Foundation after she lost her son due to the lack of emergent care offered in Airdrie at that time.

"Now we're back in that same situation where it might happen again to someone else and that's devastating," she added. 

"We encourage everyone to write to their MLA and to the health minister because this can't keep going on with the lack of health care and now seeing the closures, it's just not okay for our community." 



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