Dear editor,
Is it just me? So far I have not seen anyone championing the cause in this civic election for a full-service hospital in Airdrie. It’s almost like the mayoral candidates and hopeful councillors have all brushed it aside as a non-event, at least from what I have read so far about what they are running for.
Yes, as one of the fastest-growing cities in Canada, we have two major hospitals down the highway in Calgary. But is that adequate in these days, when COVID-19 and who knows what in the future will have Airdrie tied in knots?
I know it has been a promise of MLAs, mayors and councillors in the past, but why has the idea seemingly died?
I confess to being a senior in his mid-70s, and yes, I have made the harrowing emergency run by ambulance from our Main Street health clinic straight to Intensive Care at the Calgary Foothills Hospital. I am still here so it must have worked. But, I really wouldn’t wish that trip on anyone – particularly in these days of revamped ambulance dispatch, and not during the six months of winter we get every year.
Ask yourself this: Can you name a city of Airdrie’s size anywhere else in Alberta (or any other province for that matter) that doesn’t have a full-service hospital within its boundaries? I won’t bother to say look at the Nova Scotia, for example, where on tiny Cape Breton Island, New Waterford, Glace Bay and other areas each have their own hospitals.
It’s time to ask our want-to-be elected officials, if not now, when? Or, as I said above, is it just me?
Ray Dykes
Windsong Heights
