I commend the spirit of those who stand up for our Red Deer hospital and connect with media about it.
Our Alberta government has been told for years the Red Deer hospital was in grave need of expansion. Doctors have begged for cath lab, including a Red Deer doctor who had barely survived a heart attack himself. Many have lobbied, and when my husband battled cancer in 1987, believe me waiting weeks for MRIs etc when you know you have cancer is an eternity.
But again till you have walked in those shoes, we really don’t know. But we do know that there was a problem before the pandemic, and I really do hope this will not be like everything else now – that nothing can be done because of the pandemic.
I have watched while we hosted the Canada Winter Games, when I was in the hospital for months with my sick mother, it was being announced daily that it was over capacity. And being there every day for months you saw how the nurses were under staffed, yet there was managers to manage the managers. I won’t even go into the parking situation, where diabetic patients couldn’t get service to buy monthly parking passes, etc.
All those paid politicians should really pay attention, as you may take a lot away from people. When your loved ones are ill, your whole world changes, and yes one day will seem like a thousand, it’s time they did really act like we are in a pandemic, and take action not just talk about it or push it for the next election.
And yes I did email Premier Jason Kenney and received an automatic email notice, guess it’s because of the pandemic.
Linda (Haynes) Baggaley, Red Deer