Local news delivered daily to your email inbox. Subscribe for FREE to the rdnewsNOW newsletter.

Budget includes $1M for business case for Red Deer hospital expansion

Mar 22, 2018 | 6:08 PM

The 2018 Alberta Budget does not include a new or expanded hospital for Red Deer. What it does include, though, is an important step forward.

The budget announced Thursday by Finance Minister Joe Ceci includes $1 million for “Red Deer Health Capital Planning.”

What that means, according to Dr. Kym Jim with the Society for Fair and Transparent Health Funding to Central Alberta, is funding for a much-needed business case for hospital expansion.

“We’re very pleased that Alberta Health Services and the government have listened to the needs of Central Albertans and have made plans to spend a million dollars over the next couple of years on a business case for Red Deer,” Jim says.

A business case, as he explains it, is a vital step in terms of getting a hospital project approved. It is a document which details the costs associated with the services that are needed in our area, and with the infrastructure needed to support them.

“While it is another study, we have lots of those, this is a different kind of study than has been done before for Red Deer,” Jim points out. “It is a much more involved document and is a necessary step in order to get something done here.”

“While this is a very good story that Alberta Health Services and, quite frankly, other political parties have supported it as well, the [society] will ensure and continue to advocate and hold the government and AHS accountable for delivery of the proper services to Central Alberta.”

Jim says work on the business case will begin in a few months once work on a pair of other documents relating to it has wrapped up.

He says it’s still too early to put a timeline on how long it will take from preparing a business case to putting shovels in the ground.

The bottom line, he stresses, is that Thursday’s budget contains good news.

“Alberta Health Services and government have listened and have begun to take the steps to remedying a very longstanding problem in Central Alberta.”