Red Deer hospital expansion group demands province and AHS provide clear transition plan

2. We need equal representation of regional and rural voices on the AHS executive lead team and in all major AHS decision-making processes

3. We need a patient capacity/physical infrastructure and human resources transition plan on how to get us from now to 2031

4. We humbly ask the public attend a health care rally with us in May 2023, and that they demand health care answers from their government representatives between now and then

“SHECA made predictions (when it launched in 2016), and unfortunately, these predictions were accurate. We have seen a deterioration of programs at Red Deer Regional Hospital, we have seen staffing concerns emerge, and unfortunately, the decisions and actions occurring today are going to continue to negatively affect health care here for years to come unless rectified. We need a transition plan; that is the take home point,” said Dr. Kym Jim, SHECA spokesperson.

Jim added that while there’s now a $1.8 billion plan, ground has been lost over the last several years with inaction. That has, in part, led to the region hitting the 30-year mark with a net-zero increase in hospital beds, he noted.

Jim and company also repeated one fact long known, which is that Central Zone is historically underfunded compared to Edmonton and Calgary.

Onto the FOIPed numbers:

i) Over the last 18 months, SHECA shared, operating rooms at RDRHC have sat empty almost every weekday due to a lack of nurses — over 1,010 empty operating room theatres since Sept. 2021.

This has “led to surgeons decreasing their FTE, retiring early, or leaving Central Zone altogether,” SHECA wrote in their presentation.

ii) Over 20 specialist physicians have left RDRHC over the last two years.

This has led to what SHECA calls ‘service disruptions,’ meaning patients often have to wait until morning to see a physician for urgent heart, lung, liver, kidney and gastrointestinal issues.

In the last six months (~180 days), there have been 57 combined nights with service disruptions to cardiology/internal medicine. There have been 32 nights with the same for gastroenterology, with each instance meaning more patients sent to Edmonton and Calgary area hospitals.

When patients are transferred to other hospitals, often in clusters, Dr. Jim said, “This creates enormous chaos.”

iii) In Central Zone, just four out of 707 physicians (0.57%) receive a clinical stipend, which doctors receive for being on-call to tend to urgent cases. In Edmonton Zone, 34.3 per cent of doctors receive this stipend; it’s 20.8 per cent in Calgary Zone, 6.6 per cent in the North and 12.6 per cent in the South.

SHECA says this, “dramatically affects physician recruitment, retention and morale.”

Dr. Keith Wolstenhome, an orthopedic surgeon at RDRHC, said this is just another indicator of neglect as it relates to RDRHC.

iv) From January through September 2022 at RDRHC, over-capacity status 2 or 3 was in place for 65 days. That includes 17 days in July and 17 days in September.

Wolstenholme described the current staffing situation bluntly.

“A lot of health care workers have looked at the experience of working at RDRHC, compared it to working in Edmonton or Calgary, and they’ve made choices for their own health and quality of life, and left Red Deer,” he said. “That’s a tragedy.”

Wolstenholme says staff at RDRHC are world class, adding that it was at one time an, “amazing place to work.”

SHECA and Wolstenholme are also concerned that there is no regional voice on the AHS executive; no one to champion for Red Deer, nor other areas outside of Calgary or Edmonton.

Doctors say regional representation fell by the wayside when AHS was created in 2008, and there were no longer regionally dedicated voices.

“We just want to be on an equal playing field. We’re not asking for anything more or extra, although you could argue that to attract health care workers of all stripes, maybe we do need to offer extra for somebody to move to Red Deer,” said Wolstenholme. “We can see it’s easier to recruit to Edmonton or Calgary, so maybe we do need an advantage. We certainly don’t need to be disadvantaged.”

Mayor Johnston, who was part of SHECA prior to becoming mayor, and whose wife passed away in 2017 following a cardiac arrest which couldn’t properly be treated in Red Deer, emphasized the doctors’ message that RDRHC, and the 20+ communities which feed into it, simply want parity.

“I’m as angry as anyone. Today is a day about people; it’s not about who has a great plan, or who did or didn’t do this, or shovels in the ground. Every doctor and nurse in Bentley, Ponoka, Rocky Mountain House, Innisfail, Blackfalds … they’re hanging in there too,” said Johnston. “We’re not asking for preferred status, favours or special treatment. We’re asking for a voice for our physicians and nurses on a strategy for the hospital going forward and a transition plan to get us there, today.”

Johnston’s remarks earned a standing ovation, including from the dozen or so other mayors in attendance.

Also at the town hall was Red Deer-South MLA Jason Stephan, who points the finger squarely at AHS to do better. Stephan was asked, however, how much responsibility the government should take as it has power over the provincial health authority.

“We have replaced the board and have an administrator there because AHS needs to do a much better job. We pay a lot of money through government to provide health care services, but — as we saw during COVID — our ICU capacity in Alberta, even with the great amount of money we put in, was still less than half of the lowest U.S. states. Dr. [John] Cowell is looking at a broad number of things, but we do need to have that fair representation and to make sure the budget is used in an efficient and fair way,” said Stephan.

“I don’t feel happy about it (the numbers shown by the doctors). There’s room for improvement and there always is. We always have to strive to be better as government, but we’re never going to get it perfect. I don’t like seeing the unfairness though, and there was unfairness as far as infrastructure which is in the process of being rectified. In terms of operational unfairness, we need to do better.”

SHECA officials asked the public to keep their eyes on the group’s website and Facebook page over the coming weeks for more information, including a specific date and time for the public rally.

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by Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

Red Deer hospital expansion group demands province and AHS provide clear transition plan

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