Rising for the first time in question period as an Independent, Scott Sinclair challenged the UCP last Thursday over health care decisions he says are failing his Lesser Slave Lake riding.
“Health care in Lesser Slave Lake has hit rock bottom,” the MLA said, pointing to emergency room closures, a need for a High Prairie helipad, and plans he says favour cities over rural and remote communities.
Sinclair — ousted March 7 after posting criticisms of the UCP’s proposed budget — questioned Minister of Health Adriana LaGrange in the Alberta legislature over no approval for the helipad after years of effort from the community. Locals are willing to cover most of the costs themselves, he said.
Calls for the helipad go back to the 2017 opening of a new hospital. STARS Air Ambulance at the time began using a temporary landing area, but Transport Canada ordered it closed in 2020 for not being up to spec.
Today, the High Prairie hospital relies on an airport about 20 km away on the other side of CN railway tracks. A derailment blocked the most direct route for three days in 2023.
LaGrange said decisions about helipads and the like would follow receipt of a report she expects soon that looks at air ambulance facilities and services throughout the province.
She pointed to health care spending of $28 billion in the budget, up 5.4 per cent from last year, as a demonstration of the government’s commitment. “Every part of Alberta is a priority for our government,” said LaGrange.
The province’s physician count has increased to more than 12,200 from about 10,600 since she became minister in June 2023, she added. And a new primary care compensation model will attract more doctors to rural Alberta.
Sinclair threw shade on spending plans in Red Deer-South, which abuts LaGrange’s constituency of Red Deer-North. The budget identifies $557 million to continue redeveloping Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre.
It also mentions $22 million going to an interim catheterization lab there through a partnership with the Red Deer Regional Health Foundation. Given that the redeveloped hospital is slated to open in 2031 with two permanent labs, the money would be better spent in northern Alberta, Sinclair said.
But LaGrange said the hospital foundation is ultimately covering capital costs of the interim lab. Central Alberta has “for many, many years” been underserved for cardiac catheterization, a procedure used to assess and monitor patients’ heart and artery function and damage.
Sinclair said the hospital in his hometown Slave Lake has had to close its emergency department overnight “multiple times” in the past 12 months. “Every time the ER is closed, the people of Lesser Slave Lake have less and less faith in the premier’s ineffective vision for health care in northern Alberta,” he added.
The riding of Lesser Slave Lake is home to about 27,000 people, more than half of whom are Indigenous. Elected in 2023, Sinclair is a fifth-generation Indigenous businessperson.
One of two towns in the riding, Slave Lake is about 250 km northwest of Edmonton. The other town, High Prairie, is about 120 km to its west. Both are in the lower fifth of the mostly rural and remote riding.
The government is reorganizing Alberta Health Services into four agencies from one. It says the “refocused system” will lead to more timely access to primary care practitioners, shorter emergency room and surgery wait times, consistent access to continuing care, and expanded access to mental health and addiction treatment.
But critics call the reorganization a waste of time and resources that should instead address problems directly.
As an Independent, Sinclair is entitled to rise in oral question period once a week and deliver one member’s statement every three weeks.
