New Edmonton clinics have no staff
Urgent care, family practice in $44M building still not open
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2010/08/04/ed-east-edmonton-health-centre-clinic-closed.html#ixzz0vil0H9DB
New urgent-care and family practice clinics in north Edmonton can't open because there's no money to pay for staff, says Marianne Stewart, a vice-president with Alberta Health Services.
The East Edmonton Health Centre cost $44 million to build and officially opened in June, with mental health, home care and social services among its offerings. But the urgent-care and family practice clinics have no staff.
"We don't know when it's going to open," Stewart said. "Things take time, and it's no secret that we need to manage and balance our budgets, and there are multiple, multiple priorities that have to be in place before we can just push one over another."
'Sounds like it's sitting there like a white elephant, looking pretty.'—Linda Maude, north Edmonton resident
The health centre was designed to be a one-stop shop for health care, offering child health services such as immunizations, dental services, speech and language services, and adult services including mental health care, home care, communicable disease control and community education classes.
Situated just north of Edmonton's downtown, the spacious new clinic is meant to serve a community with high levels of chronic illness and mental health issues.
But the urgent-care and family practice clinics can't open until Alberta Health finds the $9 million needed annually to fund the equivalent of 36 full-time staff, which doesn't include the four family physicians needed to fill the space.
"We have tabled our budget," Stewart said. "We will see what we have. We're still working through those things, looking at our list of priorities, where we have pressures, what we're going to do first.
Linda Maude, a community resident, said she would use the clinics if they were open.
"Sounds like it's sitting there like a white elephant, looking pretty," she said. "Why would you build new hospitals when you a) don't have enough staff, and b) you have staff freezes on? You know, it seems illogical to me."
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2010/08/04/ed-east-edmonton-health-centre-clinic-closed.html#ixzz0vikg8fad
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