Long wait for lab appointment makes for an election choice

By Lethbridge Herald on May 3, 2023.

Editor:

Recently, my nurse practitioner ( I am one of about 40,000 Lethbridge citizens without a doctor) gave me a requisition for a routine blood test at one of our local medical labs. When I asked which lab I should go to, I was told here are only two in Lethbridge!

I was also given instructions on how to make that appointment. I seem to remember that many clinics used to have a lab on their premises.

You got a checkup, and a request for a sample of your blood and/or urine, then you took it to their lab and a few minutes later you were on your way home. One could also go to the Community Lab at the hospital (this was handy for me because my home is only a 15-minute drive away.) I used to phone the lab and was given an appointment often for the next day at a time suitable for me.

Then I learned that there was one lab on the southside, and one on the northside. All the other smaller (and convenient) labs were somehow closed by the AHS, and a contract was made with Dynalife to do all the lab work for Alberta! 

That seems like a good monopoly for the private owners to make a pretty hefty profit, when the government pays for this. 

The information sheet I was given had two numbers on it: one for Edmonton, one for Calgary, and one for the rest of Alberta.

 I called the third number, and discovered it was one in Calgary. I asked for a Lethbridge clinic, and eventually someone from somewhere indicated that the soonest I could get one was 15 days away! 

It seemed to me that a few hours waiting in the clinic as a walk-in would get me in sooner!

Now to my final comment, which will be to all Albertans:

We have a choice at the end of May: We can accept what we have seen thus far in the medical crisis, or we can try to get something different (and I hope something better.) Our choice is for a  far-right thinking government or a centrist-thinking one. We deserve whichever we choose!

Oh! where is a Peter Lougheed when we so badly need someone like him??

E.E. BalayLethbridge