Minister of Infrastructure Nathan Neudorf speaks to Red Deerians at Public Information Session on Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre expansion on Thursday at the Red Deer Provincial Building. (rdnewsNOW/Alessia Proietti)

By Alessia Proietti

"Setting expectations"

Functional programming near complete for hospital expansion; lots of work to go

Jan 26, 2023 | 10:29 PM

“We’re trying to let the people of Red Deer know that this isn’t about commitment. We’re committed; we’re doing this,” said Minister of Infrastructure Nathan Neudorf about the Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre expansion.

“It’s about setting expectations so that they know what they’re going to get and roughly when they’re going to get it. I want to under-promise and over-deliver not over-promise and under-deliver. I’m already a politician; people don’t trust me.”

During a public information session Thursday evening at the Red Deer Provincial Building (4920 51 St), Neudorf shared that the functional programming phase is expected to be complete by the end of March 2023.

In tandem with Alberta Health Services (AHS), he says the phase began when the $1.8 million dollar investment in February 2022 into the hospital project was made.

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AHS officials stated the stage consisted of three meetings, starting in May 2022, with roughly 20 members in attendance from 30 different departments, an engagement process with over 500 participants from clinical staff and physician groups, and a health advisory council.

“This is actually the fastest functional planning I’ve ever seen,” said Janice Stewart, AHS Chief Zone Officer for Central Zone, who has 30 years of experience in healthcare. AHS officials said they are ahead of schedule; adding the small-scale renovations at a Rocky Mountain House facility took the same amount of time.

He says the intent of the session was for the public to have a better understanding of the complexities and reality of building a hospital.

“There is a lot of work before the public sees what they want to see. They want to see a building go up; that’s the exciting part,” he said.

One unique characteristic of a hospital, he emphasized, was the large amounts of work required behind the walls and in between floors. He said while an average room has about 12 feet in height to the ceiling tile and an additional four feet for ducts, electrical wiring and cabling, a hospital is more on a 50-50 ratio; 10 feet from floor to ceiling and another 10 feet for various technologies before the next floor.

Some of those technologies found behind the walls include the wiring for the external headboards for each hospital bed and the mechanical servicing for Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) to properly move air and fluids throughout the hospital.

Neudorf shared the timeline ratios for different projects, stating for a hospital, the majority is spent before construction to ensure the facility is done properly as any future changes would be more costly than normal. He said roughly two and a half years is devoted to programming and the same amount on design, totaling around 10 years with construction. He compared the projects of the new hospital in Grande Prairie that took roughly 12 years and the Calgary Cancer Centre that took around seven years to complete.

“That’s where that whole iceberg image becomes very important,” he said.

Typical Schedule Comparison chart for projects. (rdnewsNOW/Alessia Proietti)

Following Minister Neudorf’s comment that the public “doesn’t understand [the complexities] and it’s difficult to explain to them because it’s tedious and very time consuming”, the Alberta NDP said they found the remarks insulting to residents.

“I am shocked by his arrogance,” said NDP candidate for Red Deer-South Michelle Baer. “Residents in Red Deer and across Central Alberta have been desperately waiting for this hospital.”

“For the Minister to imply that residents wouldn’t understand the complexities of its construction and the delay is a slap in the face. The UCP should be taking ownership of the delay and committing to finishing the work instead of making up excuses and avoiding responsibility.”

“This is condescending and dismissive,” said Alberta NDP candidate for Red Deer-North Jaelene Tweedle. “I can assure Minister Neudorf and our local MLAs Adriana LaGrange and Jason Stephan that residents of Red Deer and Central Alberta deserve a lot better than the UCP’s delays and attacks.”

“Red Deer deserves a government that will be transparent and responsive around this critical project. We are facing a crisis in our healthcare system, and now is not the time for elected officials to be belittling residents who are deeply concerned their family won’t be able to get the care they need.”

The Alberta NDP said they would commit to Red Deer and central Alberta that their government would prioritize the redevelopment of the hospital, explore any opportunity to speed up the timeline, be transparent with the project’s timeline, and ensure current and future hospitals are fully staffed as part of their plan to recruit and train new healthcare workers.

While Neudorf expects the completion date to remain by 2030/31, he said the design of the expansion is still undetermined, but plans have changed since their update in November 2022. He says there will likely not be floors built above the hospital but rather potentially two new buildings entirely, one adjacent to the current tower and an ambulatory care building across the parkade. While this would use current parking space, he said the recent multi-level parkade was originally built to support a hospital expansion.

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Potential hospital design. (rdnewsNOW/Alessia Proietti)

Neudorf confirmed building at another location would not be feasible as all plans would have to be scrapped to start from scratch and that the current location was most suitable to move forward.

Red Deer County Councillor Christine Moore questioned what would be done to solve the current overcapacity in the meantime.

Neudorf responded that the government is adding continuing care beds, investment in Emergency Medical Services to improve ambulance response, and create efficiencies in other hospitals. Stewart added that AHS is looking to find greater use for the 30 facilities in the Central Zone by moving surgeries around, providing additional staffing supports to Emergency Departments and improving processes to reduce the high length of stays in hospital. She said the Zone has more beds per capita than any other zone in the province; they are just in the wrong place.

One local doctor responded that an emphasis should be placed on staffing and training in time for the hospital’s opening to avoid another few years of waiting.

“We have to build the humans and recruit the humans and retain the humans in anticipation of the build,” said Dr. Michael Mulholland, AHS Zone Medical Director, stating the government has already asked AHS to look at uplifting staff in facilities in nearby towns.

“Chasing perfection is a fool’s errand because you’ll never get there; you’ll never catch it. Sometimes you draw a line in the sand, you have a commitment to the community saying, ‘this is happening’,” said Neudorf.