Re: "Hospital funds should have been prioritized over Balzac interchange," letter, Airdrie City View, April 20, 2023
Dear editor,
Finally, we read some common sense on the urgent need for a full-service regional hospital here in Airdrie. Letter writer Vern Raincock outlined a compelling case for such a facility in a recent issue of the City View.
But, where is the political support? Where is the community leadership to propel this demand?
Maybe I am out to lunch, as they say, but I think not. Having travelled extensively around this world, I know that full emergency hospital services are essential to the health and prosperity of a community. I am still struggling to find a city as vibrant as Airdrie in Canada that doesn’t have its own hospital.
So, if you want my vote, politicos (yes, I confess to being a former journalist who has worked in three parliaments around the world) you’ll need to make a full-service hospital a must for Airdrie. It just makes so much sense.
Don’t wait for a child to get sick, or a senior like me to develop something urgent. We need a go-ahead decision for a full-service hospital here now, given it will be three years or so before even a politically promised facility could become reality.
As I see it, the medical need overpowers any call for another Balzac highway interchange and all the dollars that will cost. I haven’t seen many advocating for that, but now it seems it is becoming a reality.
Please let common sense and community need prevail and start an Airdrie hospital project now, rather than later. It could even have a specialty area that would mean some Calgarians would have to drive here instead of us being forced to drive deep south to get an MRI – as we did recently at the awesome South Health Campus.
Airdrie deserves as least as much. Surely there is support out there?
Ray Dykes
Windsong
