SUNDRE – A resolution seeking to lobby the provincial government for more combined lab and X-ray techs that was brought forward and presented by Sundre’s mayor in Edmonton at the recent Alberta Municipalities Convention, passed with overwhelming majority support.
“We were hoping it would because RMA (Rural Municipalities of Alberta) passed it a while back,” said Richard Warnock.
“We’re looking for a two-organization dual support to present it to the government,” Warnock told the Albertan on Oct. 3.
Seconded by the Town of Olds, the resolution ended up passing with about 95 per cent support, he said.
It calls for Alberta Municipalities to advocate the provincial government collaborate with post-secondary institutions on increasing the number of available seats to train combined laboratory and X-ray technologists for rural Alberta by expanding by 20 the number of seats for training at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT).
The successful resolution further called to explore potential options to consider means by which an additional 20 seats could be created either at NAIT or another post-secondary campus in the province.
According to background information included with the resolution, which is available in full through the Alberta Municipalities website, NAIT is the only post-secondary institution in the province to provide this specialized program. From an annual average of about 500 applicants, roughly 200 are subsequently interview, but there are only 40 seats available every year.
“This demonstrates that the demand for the current program is very high and filling additional seats would not be an issue,” reads part of the document.
As well, maintaining or possibly even expanding services in smaller hospitals has an important beneficial ripple effect of providing “a buffer for the injured and sick from the chronically overcrowded big city emergency rooms.”
NAIT has according to the resolution’s proposal also indicated its commitment to consider options to expand the program’s capacity as well as its infrastructure to support larger classes.
Asked what originally prompted him to present the resolution, the mayor said, “it was brought forward to the Sundre Wellness Advocacy Committee that Sundre was at risk of having to close our ER because of the lack of combined lab X-ray technicians.”
When the committee, which Warnock sits on, heard about the situation, it came as a surprise.
“Because we were unaware of that,” he said, adding a follow-up effort subsequently began to compile statistics and data to get a clearer understanding of the bigger picture to present a stronger case.
While the shortage of health-care staff ranging from nurses to health-care aides and of course doctors is more commonly known and talked about, there’s less of a spotlight on the struggle facilities such as the Myron Thompson Health Centre face when it comes to securing enough combined lab and X-ray techs, he said.
“They seem to always leave out the combined lab X-ray technician. And the main reason for that, I believe, is big city hospitals don’t need that person. They have enough capacity and staffing,” he said.
“A town like Sundre doesn’t have that opportunity; we don’t have the funding nor the staffing for that,” he said.
And after all of the hard work invested by the hospital’s site manager and staff to keep the facility’s ER open even throughout the pandemic, the last thing anyone wants now is a reduction to services – or worse, he said.
Yet the issue is not isolated only to Sundre and left unaddressed has the potential to negatively impact all of Alberta’s rural hospitals in small towns, he said.
“We all want to keep our ERs functioning,” he said.
With the resolution passing, the matter must now go before Alberta’s Ministry of Advanced Education. But Alberta Municipalities will continue coordinating alongside their counterparts from the Rural Municipalities of Alberta to compile as much pertinent information as possible in the effort to persuade the provincial government to take urgent action on the widespread issue, he said.
Fully cognizant that the shortage won’t be addressed overnight, the mayor expressed optimism that having the resolution in hand might serve to at least eventually help alleviate – if not outright remedy – the shortage in the long run.
“We’re hoping that the province will through NAIT and through the lab for the practicum be able to negotiate something to increase the number of training seats going forward,” he said.
