Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley started the second week of the provincial election campaign in Lethbridge on Monday, sharing how her party plans to address the city’s health-care concerns, if elected.
Notley unveiled the Lethbridge Teaching Clinic at a campaign rally Monday evening.
The model would recruit seven medical students and 20 family medicine residents to serve southern Alberta.
“It would make perfect sense to put it here in Lethbridge when we know there’s so many folks in the city who don’t have access to a family doctor,” Notley said.
According to Notley, it’s part of the NDP’s family health teams plan, which promises to build 40 new family health clinics across the province.
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“We would look to making sure one of those clinics was here in Lethbridge, but we would design it in particular and then put in the extra funding to allow for the teaching component of it,” Notley said.
The NDP says the Lethbridge clinic’s construction has an estimated $10-million price tag and would operate at a predicted annual cost of $18 million.
Lethbridge-East UCP candidate Nathan Neudorf calls it similar to his party’s measures.
“It’s interesting to hear they are announcing things we’ve already started in motion,” Neudorf said.
In January, the UCP announced $1 million to explore the feasibility of establishing physician training centres outside the province’s two major cities, including one at the University of Lethbridge.
“That’s the future, getting out kids into our schools to fill our positions, because after they’ve done their seven to eight years of training, they’ve sort of become established in our community,” Neudorf said.
The United Conservatives are also funding expansions at Chinook Regional Hospital.
About $11.2 million is earmarked for the renal dialysis program, while $2 million is meant to design a catheterization lab.
“There’s lots of people that we need to draw here. Having the facilities that they can fully practise what they went to school for is a big part of that,” Neudorf said.
Last month, the NDP promised $20 million to support new interventional cardiac services and enable catheterization in the city if elected.
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