Alberta budgets funds to build new hospital in Edmonton

EDMONTON – Alberta’s 2017-2018 budget handed out plenty of healthcare goodies earlier this month, with a pledge to build a new hospital in Edmonton and a 200-bed continuing-care facility in Calgary. The $4.5-billion health infrastructure plan also includes money to modernize and renovate Edmonton’s Misericordia Hospital and build two new facilities at the Royal Alexandra Hospital.

Global News reported that no money was allotted for the Red Deer hospital, which Alberta Health Services has said needs 96 more inpatient beds, 18 more beds in the emergency department, and three more operating rooms.

In February, Dr. Keith Wolstenholme, the chief of orthopedic surgery, said that some patients have waited days for a bed in the emergency ward, and surgeries regularly have to be cancelled.

An AHS report released in October identified the need for a new hospital in Edmonton to meet demand. It recommended a new Edmonton health campus to include inpatient beds, emergency care, rehabilitation, mental health, diagnostic and ambulatory services.

Edmonton hasn’t seen a new adult hospital open in the city since the Grey Nuns Community Hospital opened its doors in 1988. While no site has been chosen for the new facility, the province will likely have to find a lot more money to fully fund the project.

Calgary’s newest hospital, the South Health Campus, came with a price tag of over $1.3 billion when it opened in 2013.

“The last time Edmonton had a hospital was more than a generation ago – I think it was 1988 – and at that time, the population was in the 500,000 range,” Health Minister Sarah Hoffman (pictured) said. “Now we are much closer to a million.

“Even if we are offering more care closer to home, or even at home, we still need to have those acute care spaces to make sure that we are meeting the needs of a very young and growing city and it is about time.”

The budget also includes the nearly $1.2 billion previously promised for Calgary’s new cancer centre. Construction on this project is scheduled to begin later this year at the Foothills Medical Centre, although the cancer center won’t be ready to see patients until 2024.

Another $40 million has also been budgeted for a new provincial drug production and distribution centre.

The government earmarked $65 million to modernize and renovate the emergency room at Edmonton’s Misericordia Hospital and $519 million over four years for a new child and adolescent mental health building and the Norwood Long Term Care Facility at the Royal Alexandra.

On the operations side, health spending remains the biggest-ticket item of the provincial budget, at $21.4 billion – $685 million more than last year.

The 3.2-per-cent increase comes despite discussion last year by the province that health spending in Alberta was outpacing per capita spending in other provinces, including British Columbia and Ontario. In the last budget, the province noted it was working with AHS to find ways to cut costs.

AHS will receive $14.7 billion, while $5.2 billion will go to compensate the province’s doctors, an increase of $400 million over last year, though the province says a new agreement with the Alberta Medical Association will save $500 million over two years.

Another $45 million has been pledged for addiction and mental health support, including funding to support the recommendations in last year’s Valuing Mental Health Report.