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Province touts Budget 2021’s $143-million for health facilities

Mar 4, 2021 | 2:22 PM

CALGARY, AB– Calgary’s Foothills Hospital is receiving new priority health capital projects from Alberta’s 2021 Budget.

Foothills Medical Centre’s neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is being given $23 million to add 19 more beds to better support growing families.

The province says the NICU is one of the busiest in the country, admitting three-to-four newborns every day with acute medical needs.

“Government’s funding announcement for these capital projects will touch the lives of Albertans across the province,” says Dr. Ted Braun, vice-president and medical director of Clinical Operations with Alberta Health Services.

“This investment in improving the quality of care in Alberta will pay dividends for years to come, starting with our most vulnerable – premature newborns – where the need for expanded services is great,” adds Dr. Braun.

The province says an $18 million investment will go towards “a new cyclotron and southern Alberta’s first radiopharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Calgary.”

A $59-million project at Calgary’s Rockyview General Hospital was also announced to redevelop and relocate the intensive care unit and coronary care unit to one joint expanded space with 25 beds, up from its current 17 beds.

In Northern Alberta, La Crete is getting a new $35-million community health centre with more space to provide primary and ambulatory care, maternal health care, mental health and diagnostic services.

$8 million is going towards demolishing the unused High Prairie Health Complex and prepare the land for future development.

In the press conference, Molly and Patrick Wilding and their child Gianna told the story of how the NICU at Foothills helped save Gianna’s life and the treatment at the NICU.

Gianna was born prematurely at 23 weeks and six days gestation, weighing one pound six ounces, which is “unusually small,” according to Molly.

The Wilding’s couldn’t thank the NICU at Foothills enough, saying “the NICU staff helped us so much walk through so many heart-wrenching situations,” Molly added.

As part of the 2021 Budget, these announcements are among the many investments into health facilities in the province.

(Lethbridge News Now)