Calgary surgery tower slow to ramp up

Alberta’s health minister cut the ribbon Tuesday on a $550-million surgical wing that will specialize in orthopedics, but Gene Zwozdesky says there will be no money for another two years to shorten the wait for city patients in need of hip and knee replacements.

The McCaig Tower at Foothills Medical Centre has 23 state-of-the-art operating rooms, but only two will be up and running when the facility opens in mid-November. The eight-storey tower has 129 acute and intensive care beds, but initially only 31 will be available for patients.

"When it’s fully ramped up, there will be considerably more new capacity added. Is it being added right this minute, no? It’s being phased in," Zwozdesky told reporters at the official opening.

"It’ll probably be about two years … in that ballpark. It’s difficult to ramp up too quickly."

According to figures from Alberta Health Services, 10 per cent of patients at some Calgary-area hospitals are waiting longer than 33 weeks for hip replacements and 42 weeks for knee replacements.

Zwozdesky said there are blockages that prevent patients from getting in as quickly as possible for surgery, but for now the new facility will primarily handle the 1,000 procedures now being done each year at the privately-owned Health Resource Centre.

Alberta Health Services is terminating its contract with the private centre, after intervening earlier this year and paying $3 million to keep it open after bankruptcy proceedings against the owner threatened to shut the facility.

Now, the private centre says it will close its doors and terminate all of its 150 staff.

"My business won’t be feasible once the McCaig Tower opens. It’s finished," said medical director Dr. Steve Miller.

"I’d like to see the same economies and patient outcomes in the public system, but I’m not sure that will happen."

According to AHS figures, the centre had the shortest wait times for knee and hip replacements of any facility in the province.

In documents filed with the court, the private company pointed to government figures that showed it cost $1,539 less per procedure to perform joint surgeries at its facility than at public hospitals.

While the McCaig Tower will open for business in a little over a month, the new hospital has hired only about half of its 195 staff.

While it couldn’t specify how many, Alberta Health Services says some of those hired include nurses and physiotherapists from HRC.

Liberal Health critic Kevin Taft says the McCaig Tower is needed, but he’s concerned the provincial health board doesn’t appear to have the money to run the new hospital.

"Alberta Health Services has a really poor track record of opening facilities and then not being able to use them for the purpose for which they were built," Taft said.

It will cost an additional $17.7 million to run the new hospital for the fiscal year ending March 31, but medical director Dr. Peter Jamieson says he doesn’t know what his budget or the city’s surgical capacity will be in future.

"We’re going to do the same number of arthoplasties in the short immediate term," said Jamieson, "but I can’t speak to what the next budgetary cycle will do."