Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley speaks in front of Red Deer Regional Hospital on Tuesday. (rdnewsNOW/Alessia Proietti)

By Alessia Proietti

Commitment to healthcare

Alberta NDP says they will put shovels in ground for Red Deer Regional Hospital in 2024

May 2, 2023 | 5:07 PM

On the second day of election campaigns, Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley claims that under her government, she plans to see shovels in the ground for the Red Deer Regional Hospital by next year.

At a press conference held outside the Hospital on Tuesday, Notley added that she plans on opening a Family Health Clinic within the new hospital and reiterated her plans to ensure every family can get a doctor through their Family Health Teams.

“When we first got into government, the Red Deer Hospital was not as high on AHS’ property list as it needed to be. In early 2019, we committed that the Red Deer Hospital would get a significant rebuild and in fact, what then happened is the UCP matched that commitment. Unfortunately, four years later, nothing’s been done,” she said.

“We expect that we will be getting shovels into the ground no later than 2024 because we know that this is long overdue.”

Rachel Notley’s Press Secretary said they plan on doing this by expediting capital funding significantly in 2024 and 2025 compared to the UCP so that a larger proportion would be invested right away to prioritize building the Hospital.

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She said the new hospital is a top priority within the community and knocked UCP Minister of Infrastructure Nathan Neudorf when he said during a public information session in January that the public “doesn’t understand [the complexities] and it’s difficult to explain to them because it’s tedious and very time consuming.”

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

“Right now in Red Deer, you can’t get a family doctor if you need one,” said Notley, adding that 800,000 Albertans also don’t have access to a family doctor. “Our plan for Family Medical Teams means that everyone who needs a doctor in Red Deer, will get one.”

She explains that while the population of Red Deer continues to grow, the Primary Care Network’s website shows there are currently no family doctors accepting new patients. She states that the Hospital is overcapacity, with patients lining the loading bays and being airlifted out of the city, in some instances, for health care.

READ: NDP sounds the alarm on ambulance backlog at Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre

Maureen McCall, a family doctor in Red Deer for over 30 years, said that when she retired from her family practice, she could not find a doctor to take her 2,000 patients.

“Our jobs have always been demanding but they’ve been so much more difficult when the system is overburdened and caregivers feel unsupported,” she said.

The NDP says their Family Health Teams will ensure every Albertan has access to a multidisciplinary team of healthcare professionals, including nurse practitioners, mental health therapists, pharmacists, social workers, dietitians, and other allied health professionals.

Notley says their government will invest within the next two years $350 million to establish 40 new Family Health Clinics and $400 million to hire an additional 4,000 allied health professionals to provide better healthcare access, decrease pressure on Emergency Rooms, Emergency Medical Services, and lower costs for acute care.

Funding for Family Health Clinic (Alberta NDP)

READ: Alberta NDP visits Red Deer sharing plan to increase access to family doctors

McCall said doctors and health care staff in the city have been stretched to the limit, adding that they have been in need of more beds for many years.

“I witnessed a huge stress in patients, families and hospital care teams where there’s a constant pressure to discharge patients as quickly as possible to make room for those waiting in the emergency room for care that they can only receive in our hospital,” she said.

McCall expressed her support for the plan.

“It will keep families healthier and relieve the pressure on the Red Deer Hospital so you can get health care right here in Red Deer as soon as you need it.”

The NDP also said they would bring transformational changes to public healthcare across the province, like supporting flexible hours for family doctors and health professionals that include evenings and weekends. They say Alberta currently does not have any billing code or incentive to support family doctors to work in evenings, unlike Manitoba that offered premiums in February this year to primary care clinics providing care to current patients in the clinics and working walk-in hours. They say flexible hours are better for working families and parents who struggle with taking time off work to accommodate appointments.

“Our healthcare system should be centred around the needs of Albertans, and the Family Health Teams plan will make that a reality,” said Notley.

The NDP says more healthcare recruitment and retention strategies will be shared in the coming days. They also delivered a similar message in Lethbridge on May 2.

Meantime, Red Deer-North UCP candidate Adriana LaGrange released the following statement on the UCP’s commitment to health care in the Red Deer region:

“In 2019, the UCP inherited a broken, bloated, and bureaucratic health care system that was failing Albertans. Since then, we have worked tirelessly to make bold reforms and fix the health care system Albertans rely on, and today, we are witnessing positive change.

“The UCP has increased public health spending by over $2 billion since 2019. We have added 700 physicians and nearly 6,000 staff at AHS, including 1,800 registered nurses and 300 paramedics. In 2022 alone, we added 254 physicians and 800 nurses.

“The NDP completely abandoned Red Deer when they were in government. They even removed our long-needed hospital expansion from the building priority list. It’s frankly insulting that the NDP have a sign up about building the hospital when they spent more money on that sign than they ever spent on the project itself.

“The UCP made the Red Deer Hospital expansion a priority. We have now completed the planning phase of the project and have started on the design phase with construction to begin soon.

“The UCP have Red Deer’s back. The NDP clearly do not.”

Further efforts to address healthcare challenges were also noted by the UCP on Monday:

• Signed a 10-year, $24 billion health care deal with Ottawa, ensuring no Albertan will have to pay out of pocket for medical care.
• Fixed emergency room patient flow problems and reduced hospital wait times.
• Increased surgical capacity (Alberta is now on track to eliminate the backlog within the next year).
• Ratified a deal with the Alberta Medical Association.
• Streamlined credential recognition for Doctors and Nurses, and put $158 million into a recruitment strategy to get more health professionals in Alberta.