While there is money in yesterday’s provincial budget for a new hospital, unfortunately it’s not here in Central Alberta.

The Notley government has earmarked 400 million dollars for four years for a new hospital in Edmonton, but there’s nothing mentioned in terms of the Red Deer Regional Hospital.

Dr. Paul Hardy, long time General Surgeon at the Hospital, who spoke at the latest State of the Hospital Address in Red Deer says it’s disappointing to see Red Deer passed over time and time again “the fact that Edmonton appears to be getting a new hospital without a needs assessment plan, you know they’ve jumped ahead of us and this has happened time and time again so that’s worrisome, but we’ll keep pushing”.

He points to the recent community meeting “we got a lot of community support and I think that’s where we can get some traction is if the community gets behind us. We’ve finally learned maybe after 15 years that the government doesn’t listen to physicians alone, we have some expertise but we don’t carry the votes. I think when the people actually speak out, they start to listen”.

Hardy admits the “new hospital in Edmonton came somewhere out of the blue and they may need it, we’re happy for Edmonton, we’re happy for any Albertan that gets good infrastructure, but when you get left off the list year after year up to decades it’s negatively impacting to taxpayers and the citizens. So people are going to seek their care going to Edmonton and Calgary more and more”.

At the State of the Hospital Address, Hardy and his colleagues drew attention to the Red Deer Regional Hospital operating over capacity, beds in hallways, surgeries routinely cancelled and the need for more operating rooms, yet their needs were dropped off the province’s Urgent Priority List in 2016, and not addressed in yesterday's provincial budget.

Hardy continues to draw attention to just how dire the current situation is, today at the Red Deer Regional Hospital they already have 19 patients in the emergency room that are admitted but have no hospital beds, there are 25 patients awaiting emergency surgery today, most of which won't get done and will get bumped to tomorrow.

There is also a full slate of elective surgery and some will be cancelled if they can't find beds for the emergency room patients and beds for the elective surgery patients.

Hardy says it's just another day in Red Deer and a long time until the next budget.

https://www.lacombeonline.com/local/full-house-at-state-of-the-hospital-address

https://www.lacombeonline.com/local/ahs-responds-to-public-meeting-held-by-physicians-from-the-red-deer-regional-hospital

https://www.lacombeonline.com/local/ahs-responds-to-red-deer-hospital-being-dropped-as-a-priority-in-2016

https://www.lacombeonline.com/local/physicians-at-red-deer-regional-hospital-looking-for-central-albertans-to-help-them-push-province-for-redevelopment-expansion