Opposition accuses UCP of 'dragging their feet' on building south Edmonton hospital

The Official Opposition slammed the province for not prioritizing the south Edmonton hospital first promised under the NDP government in 2017.

Then-premier Rachel Notley pledged the facility would be located on a 320-acre site near Ellerslie Road and 127 Street SW and open in 2026.

Rod Loyola, the infrastructure critic, hosted a media availability Saturday and said the UCP-led government is "dragging their feet" on building the needed hospital.

"Four years of the UCP, two premiers, two health ministers and three infrastructure ministers and absolutely zero progress on the south Edmonton hospital," Loyola said.

The last hospital built in Edmonton was the Grey Nuns, which opened in 1988.

According to the province, "preliminary planning" is underway for the project, with "site preparation work" initiated in the summer of 2021.

In the latest budget, the province allocated $634 million over the next three years to start building the new hospital. Thirty-four million dollars is estimated to be spent in 2023-24.

"They promised to spend $49 million in the last budget to get the project going and instead they only spent $12 million," Loyola added. "In my riding of Edmonton-Ellerslie and across south Edmonton, we were hoping to see the signal construction could start this particular year."

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Under the NDP, the hospital was planned to add 491 beds to the Edmonton health zone.

Internal Alberta Health Services documents obtained by CTV News Edmonton last month show the province is aware that the Edmonton region has a deficit of hundreds of hospital beds.

That hospital bed shortage is projected to surge to almost 1,500 in the next several years. Even if the new hospital is built, AHS projects the Edmonton zone would still be short by 1,043 beds in 2026.

The site where the new south Edmonton hospital is to be built (CTV News Edmonton/John Hanson).

Notley committed that if she became premier after the next general election, the NDP would build the new facility at a cost of at least $1.8 billion.

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Scott Johnston, Health Minister Jason Copping's press secretary, told CTV News Edmonton that when the NDP were in power, they needed to allocate more funds to complete the hospital and no work was done on a business case for the project.

"More planning work is evolving on the project after many of the needed Alberta Health staff were reassigned over the past two years while COVID-19 was occupying much of this attention," Johnston said in a statement.

According to Johnston, the pledge of $634 million is the "single largest line item" in Budget 2023's capital plan for the health ministry.

"That is in addition to the $52 million that's been spent so far on site preparation," he added. "That work continues with pipeline integrity testing, survey work, and utility installation."

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Sean Amato and Diego Romero