Local doctors and supporters will rally for better health-care services to address the critical shortages at the Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre on Sunday.
The organizers want to remind the government about the shortages of beds, operating rooms and treatment stretchers.
The rally is scheduled from 2:30 p.m. to 5 p.m at Memorial Centre parking lot with speeches at 4 p.m.
The rally follows February’s rare-doctor-led meeting on the lack of beds in Red Deer. About 250 people showed up to the standing-room only meeting. Doctors and health-care providers discussed the urgent need to expand the Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre.
A cardiac catheterization laboratory is among the services doctors are calling for. Last October 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.