UNA alarmed by possibility of more delays for Calgary cancer centre

For Immediate Release: Friday, December 19, 2014

United Nurses of Alberta is gravely concerned by Health Minister Stephen Mandel’s comments yesterday that low provincial revenues tied to slumping oil prices may delay construction of a planned new cancer centre for Calgary plus other important health care capital projects.

“We face a continuing crisis in health care in Alberta because our province’s approach to budgeting and funding cannot guarantee sustainable and predictable financing,” said UNA President Heather Smith. “This has to change.”

“Now we have another situation in which entirely predictable fluctuation in commodity prices on international markets is being used as justification to drop important health care projects that were the subject of grand announcements less than a year ago, are urgently needed, and would help alleviate our continuing health care crisis,” Smith said.

Smith said it is imperative that the Alberta government implements revenue measures to ensure predictable and sustainable funding for essential services like cancer care centre in Calgary

Mandel told journalists yesterday that construction of the Calgary cancer centre, which had been scheduled to begin in 2015, later put back to 2016, will likely have to be delayed further.

The centre is desperately needed to relieve pressure on the overcrowded Tom Baker Cancer Centre, where patients experience long waits just to see an oncologist. Overcrowding is so serious staff have difficulty meeting their triage requirements as they face patient volumes they have never seen before.

Just last spring, the Alberta government boasted that it was increasing funding for the Calgary cancer facility, which it then called “the biggest health facility construction project in North America” and promised would be completed by 2020.

At that time, the Progressive Conservative Government said it was “proceeding with all possible speed.”

Fund-raising efforts for the centre, based on the government’s promises, have been ongoing.

Tying available funds for essential health care services and facilities to royalties based on prices that fluctuate is a political decision that can and must be changed, Smith said.

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For more information, contact:

Heather Smith, President, United Nurses of Alberta
780-425-1025