The New Democratic Party is calling for a new hospital, and for the replacement of an aging hospital in Edmonton, one the party and labour unions say is bursting at the seams, and has fallen into disrepair.
NDP Health Critic David Eggen, along with representatives of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, United Nurses of Alberta, the Health Sciences Association of Alberta and the Alberta Federation of Labour launched a campaign to call on the provincial government to build a new hospital in southwest Edmonton.
“It’s time to get working on a new facility in southwest Edmonton that will serve the needs of the community now and can continue to serve them as population grows in the future, this will be a good investment for the future of Alberta,” Daphne Wallace with the United Nurses of Alberta said.
The NDP said the Misericordia, one of the hospitals serving southwest Edmonton, is in desperate need of repairs – the party said necessary repairs have been on the priority list, but haven’t been completed.
“When you have staff in tears over the working conditions in a hospital, it’s clear that the Misericordia is no longer a safe working environment for staff, let alone as an environment that promotes healing for patients,” CUPE President Marle Roberts said in a press release.
The NDP says that from January, 2013 to February, 2014 – overcapacity protocol was triggered 576 times at the hospital.
