Skip to content

Letter: Keep writing your MLAs

We are blessed with doctors who care about the patients of Central Alberta that they serve and are demanding better services and tools in order to do their job. This has been a disappointing time for doctors, staff and patients who are referred to the Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre.The hospital suffers from overcrowding, long emergency and surgery wait times in Alberta.
10971169_web1_180109-TDT-M-Letter

We are blessed with doctors who care about the patients of Central Alberta that they serve and are demanding better services and tools in order to do their job. This has been a disappointing time for doctors, staff and patients who are referred to the Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre.The hospital suffers from overcrowding, long emergency and surgery wait times in Alberta. Regardless that Central Albertans have (an estimated) 60 per cent higher chance of death or permanent disability after suffering a heart attack. Neither AHS or the provincial government consider a heart catheterization lab an urgent problem.

Health-care infrastructure funding is a political partisan game that all provincial governments play in order to win votes. The unfortunate part of this game is that many areas are underserved because they have less voting power or a lack of allies within the governing bodies. Central Alberta is the only zone with no minister within the NDP caucus and it has received the least funding. Regardless of the record keeping done by Alberta Health Services that point to the huge deficits in our hospital and area, they have chosen to give the money to the larger centres with more services and better outcomes. The taxpayers of Central Alberta continually see their dollars go to Edmonton and Calgary and then must pay to access them. No more partisanship from Alberta Health Services and the provincial government. We must hold them accountable for fair and transparent funding. What the doctors began, we must continue. Keep writing your MLAs.

Marylou Speelman, Red Deer