Local solutions take teamwork

We are glad to hear the Premier is taking steps to make health care fit local communities.

This summer Alison Redford and a team of MLAs will travel around Alberta and speak with local health-care professionals to ensure residents have access to a health-care team tailored to their needs. (See full story on page 3.)

Airdrie health-care professionals, politicians and residents know that a cookie-cutter health-care solution will not work in our community.

There are no long- or short-term plans for a hospital to be built in Airdrie, despite our quickly growing population.

That’s why about a dozen people have come together to form the Airdrie Regional Health Care Committee. We commend these individuals for using their time and expertise to try and find an out-of-the-box solution to Airdrie’s lack of access to 24-hour health care.

Hopefully, with the Province’s help, the group can come up with some tangible solutions.

It is both disappointing and scary that Airdrie is one of the largest communities in the province without access to 24-hour health care.

As MLA Rob Anderson said, there are days of the year when Airdronians cannot reach Calgary for their health care needs.

These are matters of life and death and we are happy that the Province seems to be supporting the municipal government officials, who have long known access to health care needs to be improved in this city, but have had their hands tied because health care is a provincial responsibility.

We hope everyone involved can put their differences aside and work together to quickly find a solution to one of Airdrie’s most prevalent and alarming problems.

People’s lives depend on it.