Province announces design funding for cath lab at CRH

By Lethbridge Herald on April 12, 2023.

The provincial government announced Wednesday that Alberta Health Services will invest $2 million this year to plan for expanded cardiac services at Chinook Regional Hospital. Herald photo by Alejandra Pulido-Guzman

Al Beeber – LETHBRIDGE HERALD – abeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

Lethbridge is getting a cardiac catheterization lab at Chinook Regional Hospital.

The announcement was made on Wednesday by the provincial government. The lack of such a lab being specifically included in the recent provincial budget was a sore point with mayor Blaine Hyggen who last month made an announcement at City Hall citing his disappointment with that element of the budget.

The province said Alberta Health Services is going to invest $2 million this year “to plan for expanded cardiac services at Chinook Regional Hospital. These new cardiac services are part of a plan to provide an improved array of services for patients in the region. This strategic investment also delivers on the commitment made in the Health Care Action Plan to focus on the greatest needs of rural Albertans,” says a release.

Cardiac catheterization is a procedure that is used to diagnose and treat some heart conditions allowing doctors to take a closer look at the organ to identify problems. It involves a thin flexible tube being guided to the heart through a blood vessel.

Deputy Premier, Minister of Infrastructure and MLA for Lethbridge East Nathan Neudorf said at City Hall Wednesday the money is for design of the lab inside the hospital. How much the lab itself could cost depends on numerous factors.

Neudorf said a rough estimate of the cost could be $25 million and added the money for the project isn’t “invisible money,” as suggested by NDP MLA for Lethbridge West Shannon Phillips, who along with Lethbridge East candidate Rob Myashiro on Wednesday morning announced an NDP plan to invest $20 million into the cardiac services at CRH if their party is elected to run the government.

Neudorf said money for the lab was in the provincial budget but wasn’t specifically contained in a line item initially.

Alberta Health Services South Zone had the cath lab on its capital plan but when the plan was put forward to AHS leadership in Edmonton, it was removed at that stage “as there’s some additional functional planning required,” so it was inappropriate to put it as a line item, Neudorf explained.

“After the budget passed, that work was completed and we were able to allocate the dollars that we wanted towards the design process to take this to the next level.

“This is dollars for design to make sure we know what we’re building,” said Neudorf.

“As opposed to just a commitment or a promise, this is done. This is moving forward and the first part of construction is design because you have to know what you’re building before you can actually price and allocate budget dollars to that. This is on top of the other initiatives that we’ve already done, the surgical initiative and the renal dialysis program in Chinook Regional Hospital,” said Neudorf.

Neudorf said as Infrastructure Minister he’s been public about proper planning, the next stage of design and the commitment to build.

“We’re going through the appropriate stages. This was always an intention of our government. . . .Internal processes within AHS are what stopped it from being a line item on its own.”

Mayor Blaine Hyggen said while he was happy with much of the budget, the absence of a cath lab was disappointing.

And he heralded the announcement as good news for the city.

“This is fantastic news for southern Alberta. We know that cardiac is the Number One killer in southern Alberta so having this announcement is nothing short of amazing,” said the mayor.

The mayor said work has been done for a few years on this particular project.

“Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of working with the current government and of course I had an announcement here last month as I’m sure you’re all aware that I was not very happy with us being left out on a particular announcement,” said Hyggen.

He quickly got in touch with Neudorf and “we worked through this and I’m extremely happy with the result where we’re at today as it does take a long time for this process to unfold,” added the mayor.

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