Red Deer 1913 — 2013 Create Celebrate Commemorate
NO MERE THRILL RIDE Rush a sobering
look at what it takes to be a champion
C4
THE GREAT GROCERY GIVEAWAY IS BACK!
REBELS DOWN SASKATOON 4-2 ON THE ROAD PAGE B6
DETAILS INSIDE
Red Deer Advocate WEDNESDAY, OCT. 2, 2013
www.reddeeradvocate.com
Your trusted local news authority
WISHES DO COME TRUE
MICHENER CENTRE
Judicial review ordered BY MYLES FISH ADVOCATE STAFF The judicial review relating to the province’s decision to close Michener Centre will be heard on March 13 and 14, 2014. The Society of Parents and Friends of Michener Centre filed a request last month for a judicial review into the closure, a process that it hopes will force the government to explain how it came to its decision after years of assuring guardians and families that their loved ones would remain at Michener for as long as they lived. While it is not expected that the process will lead to the closure edict being rescinded, those with the society say they want the government to have to detail how it diverted from its 2008 pledge in the How We Move Ahead report that no resident would be forced to leave Michener Centre. “The judicial review for us is to just get information, to get the government to step forward and present their arguments to the public and not hide behind FOIP (Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy) so that we can actually understand and get the truth,” said Bill Lough, society president. “Given the history of promises that have been made, this is what we understood, so we’d like to know at what point did they turn face, and hold them accountable.” Efforts in June to acquire government documents from the period leading up to the March announcement of the centre’s closure through a FOIP request resulted in roughly 80 per cent of the 130 pages of documents received blacked out. The society is expecting the judicial review will allow it to see government documents and correspondence from the period immediately leading up to the announcement. A judicial review is a special court process with lawyers representing each party in front of a judge.
Please see REVIEW on Page A2
Photo by JEFF STOKOE/Advocate staff
Grade 5 Holy Family School student Kaleb Skinner was surprised Tuesday that he and his family will be taking a trip to Maui soon. His classmates celebrated with him in class with a pizza party and scavenger hunt and by putting Hawaiian Lei around his neck. Kaleb, who is in remission from Hodgkin’s lymphoma, was chosen by the Make A Wish Foundation Central Alberta chapter to go on a trip to Hawaii with his family.
Agonizing wait for surgery prompts questions about system BY SUSAN ZIELINSKI ADVOCATE STAFF A Red Deer woman who waited over three days for surgery to fix her broken wrist is speaking out about the wait times for surgery at Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre. Keri Jensen, 37, who fell while skating at the Collicutt Centre on Sept. 25, said she was told only two orthopedic surgeons in Red Deer could do her surgery. They happened to be working last week, but they were busy with other patients requiring a variety of more urgent emergency surgeries.
“Basically every day they were trying to get me in but I kept getting bumped,” said Jensen who finally had surgery on her right wrist on Sunday morning. Her wrist was fractured in numerous places and she now has eight screws and a plate in her radius. Jensen said the two surgeons were working nonstop and at some point somebody should have made the decision to call in another surgeon to free up one of the orthopedic surgeons for her surgery and for other orthopedic patients. “I feel there could have been a decision made to get it done.”
Please see SURGERY on Page A2
Cancer centre construction enters final stages GRAND OPENING SLATED FOR THE END OF NOVEMBER BY RENÉE FRANCOEUR ADVOCATE STAFF
Photo by JEFF STOKOE/Advocate staff
A work crew installs parking lot lighting outside the new Cancer Centre at the Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre Monday.
WEATHER 40% showers. High 5. Low 1.
FORECAST ON A2
INDEX Four sections Alberta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A3 Business. . . . . . . . . . . . . B1-B3 Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A5 Classified . . . . . . . . . . . . D1-D4 Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D5 Entertainment . . . . . . . . . . . . C4 Sports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B6-B8
After years of construction, Red Deer’s new and expansive $46-million Central Alberta Cancer Centre is set to officially open its doors in mid-November, bringing radiation treatment for local cancer patients closer to home and improving overall cancer care in the region. “We are in the final stages, finishing up minor construction and deficiency work and putting all the furniture and equipment in right now. The next few weeks will be focused on staff training and process development,” said Mona Udowicz, the director of radiation therapy for Alberta Health Services and the project leader for the Alberta Radiation Therapy Corridor Project. She noted a grand Mona Udowicz opening and open house for the public is being scheduled for around the end of November. Udowicz stopped in Red Deer on Tuesday morning to present an update on the centre at the annual general meeting for the Central Alberta Council on Aging. “Approximately 50 per cent of patients who are diagnosed with cancer would benefit from a course of radiation therapy throughout their treatment and currently that is only offered in Calgary, Edmonton
and, since 2010, Lethbridge as well,” Udowicz said. Patients spend large amounts of time and money travelling to receive radiation in the larger centres as the treatment is given out in daily fractions and can take up to 39 days, she added. “That’s hugely inconvenient. So it’s about bringing the care to the patient. We found a lot of patients will look for different treatment options to avoid having to travel to Calgary or Edmonton so we’re underutilizing radiation therapy as a treatment aspect in Alberta.” According to Udowicz, 22 per cent of Albertans had to travel over 100 km for cancer treatment before the corridor project kicked off in Lethbridge with the opening of a similar cancer centre. After the project’s planned expansion into Grande Prairie in 2017, Alberta Health Services estimates only eight per cent will be required to travel such distances. The centre is more than 4,000 square metres — four times the size of Red Deer’s current cancer facility — and will handle breast, lung, prostate, bladder and gastrointestinal cancer and cases, as well as palliative patients with bone pain or other chronic discomforts who need symptom relief. Those suffering from head and neck cancers or pediatrics will still have to make the journey to Edmonton or Calgary. “There are certain tumour groups that require such a specialized team to deliver the radiation and maybe chemotherapy at the same time that it was felt that at this time those patients should still be referred to the tertiary centres and so that will continue,” Udowicz said.
Please see CENTRE on Page A2
Superstore workers reject offer Alberta Superstore workers have rejected a contract offer, increasing the likelihood of a provincewide strike this Sunday. Story on PAGE B1
PLEASE
RECYCLE