Alberta Health Minister Fred Horne has responded to concerns raised by Mountain View County reeve Bruce Beattie during a recent meeting.
On March 19 the reeve raised concerns about physician recruitment, respite services for families needing relief, and the future of a possible new Sundre hospital.
In a letter received for information during the recent MVC council meeting, Horne provided the following comments (quoted):
• Last year, Alberta Health Services' 2013 – 2018 capital infrastructure submission identified the Sundre Hospital and Care Centre redevelopment as a proposed health capital project from future consideration in the next 10 years.
The submission indicated that this project was not among the highest priority unfunded health capital projects last year for which AHS was seeking capital support. AHS is updating its capital priorities and will resubmit them in June 2013.
• One of the other issues we discussed was access to respite services for families needing relief from the responsibility of caring for a loved one. Access to respite services can be initiated by contacting the patient's continuing care case manager or through a referral from the family physician.
• I recognize the challenges of recruiting and retaining physicians in rural Alberta. To address these challenges, our government has a number of provincial programs that support physician recruitment and retention efforts of Alberta's rural communities, including the rural physician action plan.
