A group of physicians from the Red Deer Regional Hospital are looking for community support as they challenge the province on why redevelopment and expansion plans have been dropped off the province's priority list.
 
In 2014 and 2015 the project was near the top of Alberta Health Services Urgent Priority List.
 
General Surgeon Doctor Paul Hardy, who's spent the last 20 years at the Hospital, says in 2015 the hospital was documented to already be massively under resourced, needing more operating rooms and both inpatient and emergency room beds “we have currently 9 operating rooms, we probably need about 16, it was identified we need about 96 beds, this was several years ago. We routinely have a big challenge getting patients into surgery, they are coming in for elective surgery, and when I say elective, that includes cancer surgery, there’s a lot of pressure to get people in. The hospital runs at about 110% capacity, every morning we come in and there are 15-20 patients in emergency needing a bed, with no beds”.

Hardy says surgeries are also routinely cancelled and more than 75% of Central Alberta patients on the waitlist for elective surgeries wait too long, often resulting in more unplanned urgent surgeries “we did 12,000 operations a year in Red Deer 5 years ago and since then we’ve moved about 4,000 operations to Olds, Stettler and Innisfail and we still do 12,000 operations a year in Red Deer so we haven’t been able to keep up with the growth”.

The Red Deer Regional Hospital is the 4th busiest hospital in the province and the only referral center for Central Albertans for nearly every medical, surgical, imaging and lab specialty.

Hardy and his group are hoping as many local residents as possible will turn out to a public meeting to learn more about the current needs and help evoke action from the province.
 
It's set for one week from today, February 28th at the Baymont Inn and Suites, formerly the Red Deer Lodge at 4 pm.

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