In response to a rare public meeting held by doctors in Red Deer this week, Alberta Health Services says they're listening and are working towards solutions.  

On Tuesday, hundreds of Central Albertans heard from several physicians who say the Red Deer Regional Hospital is at over capacity, surgeries often have to be cancelled and people are dying due to a lack of services.  

Chief Zone Officer of the Central Zone, Kerry Bales said right now they're working on some short term solutions, while they're developing their long range capital planning.

“The things we’ve been looking at doing are trying to enhance some of our programs such as The Early Supported Discharge Program,” Bales said.

“There’s a high focus on making sure that we’re growing our continuing care capacity, to make sure only the people who need to be in the hospital are in the hospital and then just working with the physicians and our staff around what are we going to be doing in the future, to manage that capacity and that growth.”

Bales added despite being taken off the provinces priority list last year, the hospital has been established as the highest priority in the zone and the province recognizes its importance.

Doctors also told the crowd that capita spending numbers show Red Deer at about one quarter of per capital spending, compared to Calgary and far less than that when compared to Edmonton.

Responding, Bales said AHS wants to make sure they are providing the best possible evidence, to make decisions around infrastructure investment within the province.

“We’ve done a lot of planning with the physicians in the past, we’re going to continue to build upon that and make sure that we’ve got strong evidence,” Bales said.

“We want to make sure we’re supporting the best possible decisions given what we know is a difficult time in an economic challenge.”

The long range planning is expected to be wrapped up in September to be submitted to the province.

Bales explained they aren’t looking to re-do any of the planning that was done in the past, instead they want to build on it.

Physicians encouraged Central Albertans to make their voices heard, engage on social media and write letters to elected officials.

Doctors are also arranging a rally in June and are planning to form a non-profit society called Friends of Central Alberta Regional Hospital, to continue the push for better care for Central Albertans.