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Red Deer Advocate WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 24, 2014
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Review of rural health care announced
NEW PLAY BY ROUSSEAU
BY SUSAN ZIELINSKI ADVOCATE STAFF OLDS — Efforts to solve the emergency care crisis in Consort helped spur Premier Jim Prentice to call for a comprehensive rural health care review on Tuesday. Prentice announced a panel led by MLA Richard Starke will review the delivery of health care in under-serviced rural and remote areas. The panel’s first recommendations are to be on the desk of Health Minister Stephen Mandel PROPOSED FAMILY CARE CLINICS in 90 days. A2 “The timeline WON’T BE SCRAPPED clearly is short. We recognize that. That’s intentional. We need to see practical and tangible solutions that can be implemented without delay,” Prentice said. He made the announcement at a press conference at Olds Hospital and Care Centre on Tuesday morning along side Mandel. Prentice said many rural communities face daunting health care challenges, including recruiting and retaining health professionals and staff; caring for patients, having to travel long distances, and the need to co-ordinate services with neighbouring communities. In 2011, Consort Community Health Centre lost its five acute care beds due to a lack of doctors. Since then, the community found the doctors needed but negotiations are still underway with Alberta Health Services to reinstate the beds. Prentice said the commitment of the people of Consort to find solutions was really a catalyst for the review. “I want to stress this is not about closing rural hospitals,” the premier said. Panel member Bonnie Sansregret, who chairs the Consort and District Medical Centre Society, called the review an exciting opportunity. “Sometimes we have patients who have to travel an hour, an hour and half, and it’s a worry when you have a child who has a fever, you have a husband or grandfather that’s having a heart attack or a stroke. Those golden hours are very crucial,” Sansregret said. She was undeterred by the 90-day deadline, despite a three-year wait for Consort to get its acute care beds reopened. “It’s a new day isn’t it. New premier. New health minister,” Sansregret said. Recommendations for rural communities with a population of 1,250 or less, like Consort, will be submitted in 90 days. The next phase of the review will look at populations between 1,250 and 2,500, followed by the final stage for populations over 2,500. Prentice said Sansregret will bring community perspective to the table. The panel has three members in addition to its chair.
Please see HEALTH on Page A2
Photo by JEFF STOKOE/Advocate staff
Red Deer artist and playwright Elena Rousseau in her new studio in Red Deer. Rousseau’s play Baba’s Perogies will be staged at 2:15 p.m. Friday, Sept. 26 on the Centennial Stage (enter through the alley behind the Scott Block). The play will be staged again Friday at 6:30 p.m. at the City Centre Stage in downtown Red Deer. The evening performance also features the Mahana Polynesian Dancers, led by Teen Skeels, and singing by the newly formed multicultural Samasana Choir. See story on page A2.
Gravel pit rejected for fourth time BY PAUL COWLEY ADVOCATE STAFF
MARKERVILLE AREA
A proposed gravel pit near Markerville has been rejected a fourth time. Red Deer County’s subdivision and development appeal board rejected an appeal launched by Wendell Miller of 6M Holdings Ltd., who wants to build a gravel pit on 28 acres next to the Medicine River south of Markerville. His application was turned down in June by the county’s municipal planning commission. A previous application — much larger in scope — was turned down in 2010, and an appeal also failed. A group of nearby landowners has been fighting against the project, arguing it is on a floodway, could damage an aquifer and fish habitat and would create noise, dust and traffic problems. Submissions were made to the board by both sides during a two-day appeal hearing earlier this month. In its decision dated Monday, the appeal board says it is “not satisfied that the proposed development would be an appropriate development with the ESA (Environmentally Significant Areas),” a county designation that protects certain areas from “inappropriate development.” The board says it had concerns with the impact of the development on groundwater and the Medicine River and a report from 6M’s consultants was not a “quantified assessment of the proposed gravel pit on ground water resources.” Potential flooding was also highlighted as a concern. The board notes a berm proposed in the earlier application was not included in the scaled-down
project. Eliminating the berm left “insufficient evidence” that conclusions reached in previous environmental studies that the project would not pose flooding problems remained valid. “Additionally, the board was concerned about the noise generated by the proposed development and its impact on adjacent landowners,” says the decision, adding that the river valley carries and amplifies noise. Traffic was also pointed out as a concern by the board, which says there wasn’t enough evidence on truck load numbers to conclude there would be no detrimental impact on surrounding landowners. The Council of Canadians Red Chapter, which supported the landowners and submitted a letter in opposition to the gravel pit, applauded the appeal board’s decision. “In spite of the ongoing strategy of firms wishing to quarry gravel almost everywhere, repeatedly proposing mines and appealing denials in the hope they will grind down the finances and resolve of the local citizens, a proposed gravel mine in a shallow aquifer west of Innisfail, Alberta, has again been denied,” says treasurer Ken Collier in a statement. The council opposed the project because of its potential impact on an aquifer that runs through the pit area. Proponent Miller was reached on Tuesday but said he preferred not to comment until he had a chance to read the decision. pcowley@reddeeradvocate.com
Red Deer man pleads guilty in tractor chase case BY BRENDA KOSSOWAN ADVOCATE STAFF Corb Lund could write a song about this one, but who would believe it? A lifetime resident of Red Deer pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a series of thefts that could likely only happen in a place like Canada, where the snow was still knee deep in early April. In fact, deep snow and layers of winter clothes played significant roles in a low-speed pursuit involving a stolen snowmobile, a stolen quad, some stolen rifles, a stolen tractor and a Mountie hitching a ride on yet another snowmobile. “These are a rather unusual set of circumstances,” Crown prosecutor Maurice Collard said in describing the arrest of Jesse Cecka, 29, on the afternoon of April 2 in a field east of Red Deer. It started inside a rural residence near the intersection of Hwys 595 and 816, Collard advised judge Bart Rosborough in Red Deer provincial court. Cecka took some jewelry from inside the house, and then went into an outbuilding where he found a
WEATHER Sun and cloud. High 25.
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snowmobile and a locked gun case. He broke into the fleeing tractor, following its tracks. gun case and found seven firearms, loaded them onto Another officer located the tractor where it had the snowmobile and took off. stalled and he approached, using his baton to break Then he got stuck. open the driver’s window. Cecka looked at a him and He stashed the continued to work on guns in some hay starting the machine. ‘THESE ARE A RATHER UNUSUAL SET OF bales and went to The officer launched another residence, a Taser into the cab CIRCUMSTANCES.’ where he broke into of the tractor, but it an outbuilding and — MAURICE COLLARD had no effect. found a side-by-side RCMP officers CROWN PROSECUTOR quad inside. typically use a longer He was heading dart on their Tasers back to retrieve the firearms when the quad got because Canadians tend to wear thicker clothes, said stuck, said Collard. Collard. Cecka had a jacket on underneath an oilskin He went back to the farm and got a tractor with coat. The barbed dart stuck in his clothes, but did a front-end loader, drove it back to retrieve the not have any effect on the suspect, who was able to firearms and then headed across country, narrowly get the tractor running again. avoiding a Quonset and breaking through several Fearing death or personal injury, the officer got fence lines before the tractor stalled. off the tractor’s back wheel, unholstered his pistol By this time, RCMP had been notified of strange and pointed it at Cecka, who looked at him again and goings on in the fields and two members were dis- drove off. patched to the scene. One officer said he was flagged down by a farmer on a snowmobile, who offered him a ride after the Please see CHASE on Page A2
ISIL strongholds struck The U.S. and Arab allies launched a full military assault against Islamic State strongholds in Syria. Story on PAGE A7
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