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Action needed on community-based care and equity for Red Deer Hospital

Liberal MLA David Swann weighs in on Red Deer hospital
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Calgary Mountain View MLA David Swann (Photo by The Canadian Press)

With no bed increase for 15 years and no treatment for blocked arteries locally, Liberal MLA David Swann says Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre and Central Albertans are being treated unfairly.

“I have some sympathy that your bed population and your services to people have not kept pace with population demands and that should be a critical concern to the province,” said the former doctor and Calgary Mountain View MLA on Tuesday.

“In terms of equity of fairness in providing hospital services it’s clear that Red Deer is falling behind.”

Last week local doctors reacted after expansion of Red Deer hospital was again left off Alberta Health Services’ infrastructure priority list.

Consistently one of the five busiest hospitals in Alberta, Red Deer hospital was short 96 beds, three operating rooms, and 18 emergency room treatment stretchers as of 2015. Without expansion, the need for operating rooms, beds and emergency treatment space will quickly multiple.

A cardiac catheterization laboratory is among the services doctors are calling for. In 2016, local doctors reported that without local access to treat blocked arteries, and the long transfer times for the treatment elsewhere, it means Central Albertans have a 60 per cent higher rate of death or disability than people in Calgary or Edmonton.

Swann said Red Deer emergency department wait times now rival Calgary hospitals, but he was also concerned that Alberta continues to focus on hospitals while ignoring community-based prevention and health-management programs.

“On the larger picture we’ve had far too much talk about prevention and early intervention and strengthening of community-based services outside of hospital services and not enough action in developing those important community-based services and prevention programs that would reduce the demand on hospital beds and cardiac services.”

He applauded Red Deer for moving some surgeries to nearby community hospitals and increasing weekend and evening surgeries in recent years.

“It sounds like they’ve made every effort to improve the efficiency of their services through some of those smaller hospitals. We want to be using whatever infrastructure we have to the best benefit of our population.”

But he said it’s also time for doctors to provide more after-hours and weekend care in the community so people can avoid the emergency department.

“(Patients) can’t necessarily wait the whole weekend to see a doctor and emergency departments are not the appropriate place. They’re much more expensive places to be getting care and in some cases they’re less efficient and less effective because they don’t have the history, they don’t have the background of those individuals. They get less than optimal care in emergency departments with a very long wait time.”

And when it comes to specialized medical services, they can’t be available in every significant community in Alberta, Swann said.

“It’s simply not sustainable. We’re spending over 45 per cent of our whole provincial budget on health care because we’re not moving towards a more community-based and prevention-orientated model of care.”



szielinski@reddeeradvocate.com

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