The Town of Sylvan Lake is keeping up the pressure on the province to approve an urgent care centre.
An 18-person committee has been actively lobbying and building a case for the centre, which would provide round-the-clock non-life-threatening medical care. Red Deer and Lacombe County, five summer villages around Sylvan Lake, Eckville and Bentley have thrown their support behind the effort.
Sylvan Lake Mayor Susan Samson said the community made its case as recently as Wednesday evening at an Alberta Health Services “Becoming the Best” event held in Red Deer.
The province has expressed its support for an urgent care centre for Sylvan Lake, joining six others already established, including two in Edmonton and centres in Calgary, Airdrie, Cochrane and Okotoks. They treat about 180,000 patients annually.
“(Alberta Health) are recognizing it’s the correct solution,” said Samson. “They don’t have the capital to move ahead on that.”
To ensure the issue stays on the front burner, the Urgent Care Committee is organizing a strategy session to determine the best way forward. There are plans to gather statistics from the Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre emergency department to see how many patients are drawn from surrounding areas. Only postal codes, not patients’ personal information, will be collected.
Samson said Sylvan Lake is an ideal location for an urgent care centre. It is a growing community of 11,000 with a group of doctors who are willing to staff a care centre. The resort community also draws a million visitors a year and those visitors would benefit from having non-emergency care within easy reach, as would residents in a number of nearby communities.
For Red Deer’s hospital, the centre would take some of the workload off the emergency department and reduce wait times.
Given all the points in its favour, Samson is confident a care centre will be established in Sylvan. How quickly it will happen, given government finances, is another question. That’s why the committee is also looking at fundraising possibilities. When the community needed an extended care facility, $500,000 was raised in the community and the Bethany Care Centre was the result.
A similar approach could help land an urgent care centre, she said. The committee will also look at other options, such as leasing a building rather than constructing a new structure.
Samson also believes the time may be ripe because of the looming provincial election, expected in the spring.
“We think we’re positioned quite nicely right now because we know there is going to be a provincial election,” she said. “And we know that we are on the radar for Alberta Health Services and that they agree with us that it’s the correct solution.
“So we’re going to start talking about how can that happen sooner rather than later.”
pcowley@www.reddeeradvocate.com