Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley speaks alongside local candidates Michelle Baer (left) and Jaelene Tweedle (right) in Red Deer on March 2, 2023. (rdnewsNOW/Josh Hall)

By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

town hall happening march 8

Mayor, provincial leaders speak on future of hospital expansion following budget

Mar 2, 2023 | 4:32 PM

Red Deer’s mayor is awaiting more details, as is everyone, on what $321 million allotted in this week’s provincial budget actually means for the expansion of Red Deer Regional Hospital.

Mayor Ken Johnston spoke to media Wednesday in reaction to the previous day’s unveiling in Edmonton.

Johnston notes the reported surplus has allowed for positive investments in Red Deer and central Alberta, adding he’s optimistic it’ll equate to other investments in key infrastructure and programs.

The $321 million over the next two years is part of a larger $1.8 billion allotment for the hospital announced last year.

“Red Deer has been strong and united in its voice for a proper hospital serving Red Deer and region,” said Johnston. “We look forward to understanding more how this financial commitment translates into action in terms of the planning for and building of this critical piece of infrastructure.”

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Johnston called the latest delay back in October “bewildering.”

According to Alberta Health Press Secretary Scott Johnston, planning is on schedule with design to begin this spring.

“Planning is critical to ensure that we meet the current and future needs of patients without compromising patient care and delivery of health services and programs,” he says.

“This particular build is unique in that it is not a completely new build and hospital operations will continue throughout the project. We are taking steps to ensure that capacity issues are addressed and to avoid as much disruption to services as possible. As planning continues, leaders, physicians and staff are continually making enhancements to patient flow and patient care.”

Provincial Finance Minister Travis Toews spoke to rdnewsNOW this week, also noting how critical early consultations and planning are.

“There’s so much planning, design and engineering required, and it’s important to get that right,” says Toews. “If governments rush into that process, it’ll result in a poor build, cost overruns and change orders which add time and cost to the project, and it runs the risk of creating a facility that’s just not appropriate for the region.”

The province has stated construction, regardless of when it begins, which again is unknown, should be complete by 2030/31.

On Thursday, NDP Leader Rachel Notley was in Red Deer, and was asked about the hospital. She says the process will be accelerated under her watch.

She related the situation in Red Deer to that of the Calgary cancer centre which she noted went years without construction starting because a location couldn’t be decided on; that is before the NDP said in mid-2015 they were just going to pick a spot and go.

“By that, I mean to ensure that there was no further dithering and no further foot-dragging and stuff being left on the wrong person’s desk for any period of time,” she says, implying there’d be a similar approach to Red Deer.

rdnewsNOW asked Notley if she had any regret about the hospital expansion being delayed under her government in 2016, after a commitment had already been made.

“That’s a fair comment. I will say it was never actually on the capital plan. The way capital plans were constructed before we were in office, it was sort of played around with and it wasn’t necessarily a very transparent line of sight into what the government actually intended to do. So when we came in, we changed the way we reported to Albertans on capital construction decision-making, and then we were more transparent,” said Notley.

“Part of the outcome was that the reality Red Deer hospital’s position was clearer. That being said, you’re absolutely right. It was not as high on the priority list for us as some of the other projects we were dealing with at the time, in part because we were dealing with $22/barrel oil. We were trying to figure out how to deal with that, and in part because there were other projects higher up the priority list. However, by the end of our term, we were back to the point of saying this is now there, both through need, as well as having moved on from other pieces.”

Notley says without a shadow of a doubt, grand openings of some level would be occurring now or in the near future had they been reelected in 2019.

“This is now back up here, and so we’re committing to it, which we did in early 2019,” she says. “[If we were government], there would be a clear, concrete demonstration of a project that was well on its way to being finished.”

Meantime, Red Deer’s Dr. Kym Jim is hosting a town hall on March 8 calling on the province to offer up a clearer transition plan.

Jim, spokesperson for the Society for Hospital Expansion in Central Alberta (SHECA), says it’s concerning major health care projects in Edmonton and Calgary continue to seemingly surpass Red Deer on the proverbial depth chart.

Case in point, he says, is the south Edmonton hospital which is getting $634 over multiple years in this budget, compared to Red Deer getting $321 million — again, that’s over the next couple years as opposed to the entire $1.8 billion allotted for the entire expansion.

“We are by far the busiest hospital outside Edmonton and Calgary, and now are in a predicament where we won’t have a net new hospital bed in almost 30 years when this is done. We cannot make it ten more years,” says Jim.

“The number of people who’ll be shipped out is going to be off the grid. There are care deficits occurring because we don’t have programs today that we could have had if there was planning that had been done. We don’t need a new hospital for some things that need to be implemented.”

A cardiac cath lab is one example, Jim has stated in the past. Every government in the last 20 years is complicit in the situation, he adds.

“There needs to be a plan that says this is how we’re going to fix these care deficits between now and when this hospital opens.”

SHECA hosts its town hall Wednesday, March 8 at 11 a.m. inside the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame (4200 Queen Elizabeth II Highway #102). All are welcome.