Several Beaverlodge residents and healthcare practitioners gathered at the Beaverlodge Community Centre on the evening of June 26th to discuss the status of the recently approved Mountview Health Complex.
In December 2023, AHS signed a lease deal for the new Mountview Health Complex to replace the 67-year-old hospital that is currently serving the town of Beaverlodge.
Dr. Camellia Presley says she identified one area of concern that stood out to her immediately — the Mountview facility not featuring a 24/7 rural emergency department. As a result, Dr. Presley voiced her concerns in a letter she made public in June, encouraging residents to speak out against the decision.
“They announced a facility in 2022 with a service plan that’s really incompatible with the doctors in this area, as it would not provide 24-hour care,” she says. “The purpose of my letter was to Inform the community because that has largely not been done and let them know that the changes were not what they were being made out to be.”
“I would say the community is 100 per cent behind having a 24-hour facility.”
According to Presley, the facility will provide fewer services to the community than the already limited healthcare options currently available for Beaverlodge residents.
“Currently we do provide a 24-hour health option, [but] AHS looked at the data independently of local physicians and local community engagement to come to the decision for an ambulatory care center,” she says.
Presley says the issue has been debated since 2013, when AHS opened up the discussion to local physicians which led to multiple options being weighed by Alberta Health, including some that featured 24-hour emergency departments.
Despite their concerns, Presley suggests that AHS ultimately made the call independent of what local healthcare workers were saying, leading to the decision to go with a part-time ambulatory care centre, with the potential of being open for 16 hours per day, which Presley says could lead to the loss of numerous hospital staff, doctors, and programming.
“They made that decision independent of the community and I honestly think that’s why they came there, they used data without context,” she says. “To the community of Beaverlodge specifically, we will lose our current medical community if we do not proceed with a 24-hour facility.”
“Most of the doctors right now that are working in the hospital will have to leave and or reduce their services to clinic level only.”
Presley adds that the loss of hours could lead to the loss of resident teaching and student teaching in the hospital, resulting in fewer doctors in the region, and ultimately, across Northern Alberta as a whole.
“None of us would be here if it wasn’t for the residency program, if we lose the ability to teach residents, we would lose the ability to have new students come in on a regular basis,” she says. “While our residents may not all stay here, they go and serve other areas in the northwest, in the north zone and often, they are in the area providing some of our ER coverage for the first two years while they get their feet wet.”
With the potential loss of the residency program in Beaverlodge, Presley says the already challenging rural healthcare model could become even more turbulent for doctors who are already overworked under the current system.
“Rural health care is extremely challenging because you wear so many hats and there’s a lot of demands on you, whether you’re actually actively working or not working.”
When it comes to physician attraction and retention in the Grande Prairie area, Presley suggests that the loss of hours and programming at the facility could serve as a deterrent for potential doctors who are considering moving to the area.
“We have to recruit people and train people in the area that we want them to stay in, in order to be successful in recruiting,” she says. “I think if we can overcome that eight-hour gap in care to be a 24-hour facility, whether it’s an urgent care department, we would be able to be successful and continue to build the center we have.”
Following the meeting on June 26th, Presley says she is “hopeful” that AHS will reconsider the matter and engage with local physicians and Beaverlodge residents who are voicing their concerns.
“I wanted people to come to the meeting that we had last night, which they did, and I was so proud of our town, and I believe that our voices were heard last night, which is encouraging,” she says. “I look forward to discussing this further with AHS, and I hope they come to the table willing to negotiate a plan that works for this community.”
Ultimately, construction for the Mountview Health Complex remains on track, and according to the province, the facility is expected to open sometime in 2028.