On Sept. 23, Premier Jim Prentice announced a new provincial review panel to ensure healthcare in Alberta’s rural communities is “co-ordinated in an efficient and predictable manner.”
Irricana Mayor Valerie Squires said the committee is “absolutely needed.”
“I’m extremely excited about this,” she said. “(Health care) is something we have an issue with.”
She added smaller towns and villages are often overlooked when it comes to health-care facilities and attracting doctors.
“I hope that there (will be) some provisions from the Province to help build facilities (in smaller municipalities) even if it’s just a small doctor’s office,” she said. “Smaller towns have such trouble with infrastructure for these.”
She added without a medical centre already in place, it makes it even more difficult to attract doctors to the town.
The new committee will identify communities in Alberta that need attention and will review existing services and facilities in consultation with regional Health Advisory Councils, according to a press release.
The committee will focus on three categories: communities with a population of 1,250 or less, 1,205 to 2,500 and those with populations more than 2,500.
Beiseker Mayor Ray Courtman said he believes health-care issues extend beyond just rural areas and are a problem across the province.
However, he added, “one of the biggest problems” is that smaller communities don’t have medical centres in place and have to be funneled to larger cities such as Calgary for care. He said these hospitals already have crowding and long wait-times that are only made worse by the addition of patients from surrounding communities.
He said he would like to see smaller medical centres set up in the rural communities.
Beiseker currently has a doctor’s clinic on Main Street that was funded completely by residents. Courtman said they don’t have a doctor there every day, “but it’s getting more than what many small communities have.”
He added what he would really like to see come of this committee is a hospital in the city of Airdrie.
“A hospital in Airdrie would be a godsend to the smaller communities on either side of the highway,” he said.
Another healthcare issue both mayors identified was the need for medical centres to help retain an aging population in the communities.
“With age comes health concerns,” Squires said. “We recently had a couple move to a larger community because we don’t have the health facilities here.”
Beiseker has one senior facility but it is not an assisted-living centre and provides only the minimum level of care such as housecleaning, according to Courtman.
“People who need more care than that have to go to Airdrie,” he said. “To me, it would make a lot more sense to keep those people at home and in their own communities. It costs a fraction to keep people in their own homes than it does to send them to a facility.”
The new committee will report back to the Minister of Health in 90 days with its findings.
“The premier has been clear we need to do more listening and less talking when it comes to health care,” said Minister of Health Stephen Mandel in a press release.
“We need to listen to and work with our rural partners when delivering health care in their area.”
However, Wildrose Human Services and Seniors Critic Kerry Towle said a review committee is not enough.
“We don’t need more reviews, more panels, more studies and more of the same,” she said in a press release. “We need a bold new approach that tackles these issues head on.”
Courtman said no matter the outcome of the committee, he will be writing to the mayors of the communities on the east side of Highway 2 to ask them to join him in pushing for a hospital in Airdrie and bringing the need to the attention of the Province.
