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Red Deer Advocate THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 2015
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Rural health review calls for local input
CARDBOARD CARNIVAL
BY SUSAN ZIELINSKI ADVOCATE STAFF A provincial review of rural health care is recommending a return to more local input. The recommendations were among 56 released on Wednesday by the Rural Health Care Services Review Committee. The committee was created last September by Premier Jim Prentice to review the delivery of health care in under-serviced rural and remote areas. Rural Alberta’s intense frustration with the topdown management approach of Alberta Health Services has led to a provincial recommendation to “re-launch AHS” and return health-care delivery to “locally autonomous districts,” the report states. The review was conducted by a committee chaired by Vermilion Conservative MLA Richard Starke. The report recommends eight to 10 operational districts to be established by AHS, respecting historical travel and trading patterns. It also recommends they be in place by July 1. The districts would be responsible for delivering local health services and meeting performance objectives. They would meet quarterly. AHS says centralized decision-making would continue for new capital builds, the introduction of new technology, and corporate functions including finance, budgeting, human resources and communications. Each operational district would have a local advisory committee made up of 10 to 15 members to provide local input from community leaders, Health Advisory Council and AHS representatives, patients and families. In 2008, the province eliminated nine regional health boards and created Alberta Health Services to streamline the system. Health Minister Stephen Mandel said the new health districts will push decision making down to the local level and reduce overhead costs. “It’s more effective, more efficient, and more responsible to the local level to deliver the health-care services,” Mandel said during a news conference on the committee’s report in Edmonton on Wednesday. “Each district will be responsible for establishing a patient-first program. This is something we heard at many different meetings. We need to be a patientcentric system, not a provider-centric system.” When it came to AHS, rural Albertans ranked the need for more local decision making as a top priority. According to the report: ● “Communities expressed frustration and resentment about how decisions with profound effects on their health facilities and programs were made in ‘ivory towers’ in Edmonton or Calgary by people who had no knowledge of their communities’ needs. Some presenters expressed anger that decision makers had never been to their community, never met with residents, and doubted they if they even knew where their town was located.” ● “The committee repeatedly heard about simple and routine maintenance tasks (changing light bulbs, fixing toilets, and installing new equipment) that were delayed by months and even years while awaiting approvals from ‘up the ladder.’ ” Mandel said districts will be able to address the rural doctor shortage by working as integrated units and by reaching out to primary care networks to expand. Another recommendation to increase the use of nurse practitioners, physician assistants or clinical assistants will also help. Mandel said it will be up to the districts to determine how they use their facilities. For example, Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre has already moved some surgeries to other hospitals in the region and may decide to do more of that. Other recommendations to improve rural health care focus on EMS by allowing ambulance crews to discharge their patients within one hour of arrival at an emergency department, and permitting rural ambulances to return to their home communities and not be diverted for calls outside their region. Michael Dawe, who sat on the Red Deer Regional Hospital board, followed by time on the David Thompson Health Region board, called information released on the district advisory committees vague, and questioned its reliability coming on the eve of an election. “There’s nothing that compels Alberta Health Services or Alberta Health, for that matter, to listen to the advice of these committees. They can offer it, but it can be equally ignored,” said Dawe, who will run as an independent candidate for Red Deer North in the next provincial election.
Please see AHS on Page A2
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INDEX Four sections Alberta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A3,A5 Business. . . . . . . . . . . . . C4-C6 Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A6,A7 Classified . . . . . . . . . . . . D1-D3 Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C3 Entertainment . . . . . . . . C7,C8 Sports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B1-B5
Photo by JEFF STOKOE/Advocate staff
Sporting a giant balloon hat Gage Strelbisky takes aim at the fun time flickerball table as from the left, Imran Momenzada, Koroma Sheku and Isaac Harlow look on at Eastview Middle School on Wednesday afternoon. Grade 6 students under the supervision of CTS teacher Jim Bussard hosted the Cardboard Carnival after fabricating a number of arcade games using cardboard. Funds raised from the project will go to help fund a new playground structure planned for the school yard.
Air and ground searches begin for missing 68-year-old woman BY MARY-ANN BARR ADVOCATE STAFF The search for the 68-year-old woman from the Red Deer area who disappeared almost a week ago intensified with air and ground searches on Wednesday. Dozens of volunteers responded on Wednesday morning to conduct a search organized by her family to try and find Roze Burk. The resident of the rural area just east of Red Deer was last seen at the Deer Park Co-op grocery store in Red Deer on March 12. As well, RCMP called in an aerial search by way of the Civilian Air Search and Rescue Association,
and also requested ground search assistance from Red Deer County Search and Rescue. Blackfalds RCMP Staff Sgt. Ken Morrison said there were three small planes in the air on Wednesday doing a grid search of the surrounding Red Deer area. The planes can cover a lot of area and they are also able to fly at low levels so they can see more detail, he said. Police had exhausted all other avenues and the decision was made on Wednesday morning to go to the air and ground searches, Morrison said. RCMP are looking after the outlying area, which will be recorded and documented by trained people.
Please see MISSING on Page A2
Advocate’s Michener Centre project earns NNA nomination BY ADVOCATE STAFF
NATIONAL NEWSPAPER AWARDS
The Red Deer Advocate is a finalist in the National Newspaper Awards, the Pulitzer Prize of Canadian newspaper journalism. Reporters Susan Zielinski and Myles Fish earned the nomination for a package of 15 stories on the Michener Centre that were published last March and April. The package, called Michener Centre: The Closing Doors, was illustrated by photographer Jeff Stokoe. The Advocate is up against newspaper heavy-hitters the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail and the Calgary Herald in the Projects of the Year category. The winner will be announced on May 22 at the gala awards ceremony in Toronto. “It’s an amazing accomplishment for the editorial team,” said publisher Fred Gorman. “What’s further amazing is the category is the big boys category. We’re up against the Globe, the Star and the Calgary Herald. “Hopefully, Susan can go to Toronto and slay the giants and come back with the award.” Gorman said the Michener story is an integral part of Red Deer’s history. “It’s an important story and I think the editorial department did it justice.” Fish left the Advocate last year to return to his home province of Saskatchewan. When the Advocate embarked on the ambitious project, the province had announced closure of Michener Centre and had already dispatched some
of its residents to community care. Five of those residents died within months of their transfer. There was a firestorm of public protest, court action and political infighting. The Advocate stories chronicled the lives of the people who lived there, and described options for institutional and community care. Reporters spent weeks talking to family members, workers, and advocates for both institutional and community care. Through dozens of interviews and hours of research, the reporters provided an unflinching look at the Michener Centre and a past that has been both uplifting and tragic. Five months after the series of stories ran, the province reversed its decision, allowing Michener Centre to stay open for its remaining residents. “When we began sketching out the framework of the Michener Centre project, we wanted to bring awareness to the community about the institution, and we wanted to make provincial leaders understand why it mattered — to the people who still lived there, and to all Albertans,” said managing editor John Stewart. Zielinski said the nomination was still sinking in. “All the time and effort on the project was worth it because residents’ stories needed to be told, and who better to tell them than the Red Deer Advocate?” The entire package can be seen at http://www.reddeeradvocate.com/special_projects/michener/
Saputo to upgrade downtown plant Saputo Dairy Products Canada is planning to modify its downtown plant after receiving approval from MPC. Story on PAGE C4
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