(rdnewsNOW/Josh Hall)

By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

must avoid delays

Health care rally held to reiterate demand for transition plan and task force

May 6, 2023 | 3:18 PM

The Society for Hospital Expansion in Central Alberta (SHECA) held a rally outside Red Deer City Hall on Saturday.

For close to 10 years, the organization has been calling on the province to urgently move forward on hospital expansion.

SHECA held an event in March to really drive home its demands pre-election. They include a hospital expansion task force, as well as a transition plan to ensure the needs of patients and the hospital are met as construction is ongoing through at least 2031.

The message Saturday was largely the same, but has taken on new meaning now that the election campaign off and running.

Both the province’s main political parties — the NDP and UCP — have committed to hospital expansion; the NDP saying this week they’ll get shovels in the ground next year, and the UCP vowing to make good on the $1.8 billion announced for expansion in early 2022.

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Dr. Kym Jim spoke Saturday on behalf of the Society for Hospital Expansion in Central Alberta (SHECA). (rdnewsNOW/Josh Hall)

“It’s great that everyone is in support of this project, but the reality is that there’s still a lot to be done. The problem in central Alberta is that we’ve had projects close before, but they never quite delivered. Now we’re closer than ever, but we are very concerned this project might still not get delivered as we need it, when we need it. There can be no slip-ups,” said Dr. Kym Jim, spokesperson for SHECA.

“You lose a few months here, a few there, and suddenly you’re another year behind. The message hasn’t really changed, but what’s needed is that task force for the hospital to evaluate the problems we’ve gotten into, and a transition plan from that task force that says this is what we can do today to get us from now to completion. Even if you get shovels in the ground next year, it’s a decade probably before this project gets done.”

Dr. Jim says there’s been progress since that last event, in that people are listening to them, however no one has made a public commitment.

“We need a point person to give community updates every three or four months so that this project does not fall off the track,” said Jim. “The sad reality is we’ve seen more positive things happen in the last six months than in the 10 years prior. It has taken an absolute crisis to get us to this point, and that’s a tragedy.”

NDP MLA David Shepherd, who most recently served as Health Critic, was at the rally Saturday.

He says if the party wins, hospital advocates can rest assured that they have heard their demands.

“The folks working at Red Deer Regional have been under enormous pressure and have been making due with an under-resourced facility for some time,” said Shepherd.

“We owe them as much openness and transparency as we can give them. If we have opportunity to form government, we’d absolutely be open to providing timely updates, clear communication, what timelines we can, and indeed we’d be open to a collaborative task force.”