Rural hospitals, particularly Elk Point’s, took a beating from the daily media as the Edmonton Journal ran a series of articles last week on the state of expensive, crumbling and supposedly underused rural facilities, comparing them to busy and overrun city emergencies.
One article in the series recommended nine hospitals – including Elk Point’s – be shut down. A post on the subject on the Journal’s Facebook page drew swift and blunt reaction, with people almost universally condemning the suggestion.
The bottom line, as one respondent wrote to the Journal, is: “It's very easy to claim that rural hospitals aren't important when you live in the city.” Time to health care access is crucial in an emergency. The difference between 15 minutes and an hour can be the difference between life and death, and why should rural residents be faced with such a choice because of where they choose to live, when the fact of the matter is that they are a major driving force of the economy of this province?
Alberta spends more money per capita than any other province, bar Newfoundland and Labrador, but still people struggle with access to care, long wait lists and bloated emergency wait times. It’s true something in our health care system has to change to ensure people have better access to care. Another point in the Edmonton Journal’s series is the system used to rate Albertan health care facilities doesn’t always play a role in which facilities get upgrades or rebuilds, suggesting that political manipulation may be involved. That right away suggests a need for change.
Resources and delivery of health care may need to change, but this should not mean, in any way, shape or form, the total closure of rural hospitals.
Whatever changes lie in store for our health care system, the number one guiding principle cannot be the bottom line, but the question of how to provide the best possible care for everyone, all citizens, whether they are young or old, rich or poor, urban or rural.
