Ears Bitten on Airdrie Health Care

An old cowboy will tell you that if you've got a green horse or one that's a bit wild and you want to get up into its saddle you get a helper to bite the horse's ear.  The theory being, that the bite on the ear will distract the horse's attention from what's really happening.  After the rider is safely in the saddle the helper will let go of the horse's ear and make a run for the fence;  the rider is on his own!

I fear that the good people of Airdrie are having their ears bitten.  All this rhetoric about creating only a "24 hour health care" facility is distracting the good people of Airdrie from what should be the goal; getting a full fledged hospital in that great little city! 

Getting a 24-hour health care facility is obvious and should start to happen within the next few months.  Getting the hospital will take much longer.

We need a regional association, created to keep pushing for that hospital!  As mentioned on this blog, before, it took Vaughan, Ontario more than thirty years to finally get the province to listen and get a real hospital built.  We can't wait that long!

Hospital Lessons from Vaughan, Ontario

While pushing for a real hospital in the city of Airdrie, I've been yipping on about that city being the largest city in Canada without a hospital.  I was wrong!

That dubious distinction belongs to the City of Vaughan, Ontario, located outside Toronto.  It's now a city of around 300,000 - and they still don't have a hospital!  The Ontario provincial government has been telling the good folks of Vaughan that they don't really need a hospital.  Because hospitals cost a fortune to build!  And after all, Toronto is just down the road -- and they have hospitals.  This discussion has been going on for years now.

Vaughan was a small city of less than 50,000 only 30 years ago.  It was (and is) one of the fastest-growing communities in Ontario.  But a number of Ontario governments said a hospital would be too expensive for such a small place!  Nothing happened. 

Now they're coming up on 300,000 residents, and the Ontario government is saying, "Holy crap, they need a hospital!  Why didn't anybody tell us?"

Does this whole story remind you of another small city just outside Calgary, with a similar story to tell?

The good news is that I understand  the new Mackenzie Vaughan Hospital is now under construction and will be completed in a couple of years.  But its total cost will be be much higher than it would have been had they built it a few years back, when the need for a hospital in Vaughan was first identified by people living in the city.

They say that those who do not know history are destined to repeat it.

Well Premier Notley, there's a bit of history for you.  What's the plan?