Loss of doctor closes emergency room Town residents want Alberta Health Services to reopen facilities now that recruitment is done
EDMONTON — They travelled through a late winter storm to tell their story on the steps of the legislature while the wind whipped away their words.
The residents from Consort, Alta., hope someone inside the legislature heard them and will help reopen the emergency and acute care beds in their small town hospital.
“The reaction thus far is we’re pretty low on the priority list. We’re here to make it known that we need those emergency services,” said Bonnie Sansregret of Consort.
The last doctor left Consort in 2011, and the emergency department and five acute care beds were shut down.
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Members of the community got to work to bring the doctors back. They hired a recruiting firm, built a $300,000 home and are building a second house for another doctor.
“We’re very proactive,” said Sansregret, also a municipal councillor with the Special Areas.
“We have found physicians, we have done everything Alberta Health Services has asked us. We have five acute care beds sitting empty. The sheets just need to go on them. We need those beds back to provide the care that not only our community needs, but they deserve.”
However, they have so far been unable to convince Alberta Health Services.
“We have three doctors in place. We have the physician. We have the nurses. We have the beds. We just need permission to open them,” said Sandra Polson, who organized the bus full of residents to rally at the legislature.
“We need a public outcry. We’ve gone through the proper channels. It’s time for us to speak up and make awareness.”
Darrel Durksen of Veteran, Alta., who travelled with the group, said it’s not just the residents of Consort who need to worry about keeping doctors and their emergency departments — it’s all communities in rural areas.
The closest hospital to Consort is at Coronation, a half an hour away. However, an additional 100 kilometres of travel are required for people who live close to the Saskatchewan border.
Durksen said recent cuts to health services in the provincial budget means the government is shifting resources to the cities and hoping people in rural areas won’t complain too loudly.
“My personal feeling is everything is trying to be shifted to the urban centres, and rural just doesn’t seem to matter any more. Funding goes naturally to the urban centres.”
Keeping an active emergency room and acute care beds is an important part of keeping people in Consort, which has a new $14 million seniors lodge, a community funded palliative care facility and a hospital built in 1984.
Polson started a Facebook page to allow people to show their support and tell their stories about why it’s important to keep services in Consort.
More than 900 people joined the page within the first few days.
“It’s time for a public outcry. We have got to make the minister aware of our situation.”
Members of the medical centre board planned to meet with health minister Fred Horne March 20, after deadlines for this issue.
The area’s MLA Rick Strankman of the Wildrose Party and Alberta Health Services could not immediately be reached for comment.
Liberal MLA Dr. David Swann stood on the steps of the legislature to listen to the Consort group and a second group opposed to moving the Medevac services from Edmonton’s city centre airport to the international airport.
“I am here to support your call for responsible health care, effective health care, timely health care. This government has really screwed up our health care system in the last four years,” said Swann.
“The emergency medical system is in chaos. Rural areas are suffering just as much as urban areas in this fiasco.”
