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Dr. Kym Jim, seen at his office in Calgary on Wednesday, says the provincial government has massively underfunded the Red Deer hospital and health services in central Alberta.Jeff McIntosh

Red Deer is smack-dab in the middle of Edmonton and Calgary – which has turned out to be a bad thing when it comes to building its own health-care capacity. Often, patients with the most serious conditions are sent to one of the two larger centres, each an hour and a half away. Red Deer doctors, including Dr. Kym Jim, say they have had to become advocates for better services in the region, and to speak out about what they say is more than a decade of underfunding for one of the province's busiest hospitals – in a city that has seen its population grow by more than 50 per cent since 2000. There is evidence the situation has created deadly results as it relates to time-essential conditions. Alberta Health Services performance reports have found a person who suffers a heart attack in Red Deer has a significantly higher chance of dying than someone with the same affliction in Calgary.

Tell me about the state of health care in central Alberta. Do residents of Red Deer or Rimbey have to be more concerned about their chances of surviving a heart attack than those in Edmonton or Calgary?

The main issue is that we lack the resources at the Red Deer Regional Hospital to deal with the population of central Alberta in the same manner in which care is delivered in Edmonton and Calgary. This is really important when it comes to cardiology. In the case of a certain type of heart attack, patients go directly to a cardiac catheterization lab in Edmonton or Calgary. There's a time frame associated with that in which the therapy has to be delivered – and it is not deliverable in Red Deer. So essentially, the patients of central Alberta do not receive standard of care when it comes to cardiac catheterization and heart attack. Patients here wait longer to get routine surgeries than they do in Edmonton and Calgary. That leads to patients becoming more unwell before they get the services. Essentially what happens is the tax dollars of central Albertans are going to Edmonton and Calgary to build infrastructure there – so it has issues of fairness on top of the overwhelming issues of delivery of care.

You have said that in years past, the Red Deer Regional Hospital was on the Alberta Health Services list of priority projects, but it no longer appears on that list. 'How projects can be ahead of Red Deer that didn't even exist five years ago is beyond my understanding,' you told The Red Deer Advocate recently. What does the Alberta government say in response to this?

They have had no direct response to that question. Their responses really have been – how should I put this – have not really been satisfactory. We are now engaged in a planning process that I think is seen as a way of setting the record straight. And that's fine, as long as this planning process leads to some meaningful outcomes for Red Deer. We have upcoming planning meetings with them, specific to the needs of the Red Deer Regional Hospital – as it would serve the zone as a referral centre. We just simply are not being given the resources for multiple programs we should have based on population. As it stands today, central Alberta has not seen net new hospital beds created in over 15 years.

Do centres such as Medicine Hat, Lethbridge or Fort McMurray – also medium-sized Alberta cities – have similar problems?

I think, historically, they have had very similar problems. But recognize that Lethbridge has seen an approximate $130-million hospital expansion in the past couple of years. Recognize that Medicine Hat has seen a $200-million-plus hospital expansion in the last couple of years. Recognize that Grande Prairie has a $675-plus million hospital that will be commissioned in the next year. And there are other projects. The reality is, Red Deer was up next. This significance seems to have not struck at the planning level of AHS – it appears as though they have changed their priorities and planned to service central Alberta through Edmonton and Calgary, based on their actions at this point in time. The other very important point to this is Red Deer is unlike any of those other centres. Red Deer serves a population that is significantly greater. And our acuities, the complexity of cases, rank up there with the biggest hospitals in Edmonton and Calgary.

Has there been any progress made? I noticed earlier this month there was a $9.7-million expansion of the labour and delivery unit at the Red Deer Regional Hospital announced. Is that significant? Does that go anywhere in terms of addressing your concerns?

It helps fill a tremendous need. That basically brought Red Deer to a standard that Edmonton and Calgary had 15 years ago. This is a battle that has been long-fought, and has been out there for years. This is another area where the citizens of central Alberta have not been well-served. One of the responses back when we were originally approaching the media with this was: "Red Deer has done fine. You just had roughly $100-million put into the site." Well, dissect that $100-million: $45-million or so was a parkade. Parkades should have never entered into the equation because they're self-funded projects. Then we got a new cancer centre, which was very much needed. It is also in the range of $45-million. That project was fought for 10 to 15 years ago.

Is there a larger issue about how health-care decisions and funding decisions are made in Alberta?

Firstly, I think the centres outside Edmonton and Calgary have had issues with regards to infrastructure building relative to the bigger cities. And you know, some of those things just happen. But when you're talking about orders of magnitude of 10 to 20 times, it's very problematic. It's not just a little bit – it's a lot of a difference. Red Deer was probably due to get financing next. But in the current era of the province's finances being what they are, I think that people look to places to make cuts. They have further looked to central Alberta to bear the brunt of that cut. And then they announced multimillion-dollar projects in Edmonton and Calgary. That part is not fair. We hope that the planning process that we're engaged with now sheds some light on that. We'll see.

This interview has been edited and condensed..

Health Minister Jane Philpott says the Liberals have put health care and skills development measures in place to accommodate an aging population. Census figures released Wednesday show a fast-rising proportion of seniors in Canada.

The Canadian Press

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