The Government of Alberta has announced $59 million over three years for cardiac and intensive care expansion in southern Alberta.
Premier Danielle Smith called the funding a milestone in expanding cardiac and intensive care services across the South Zone. She said it will benefit patients at Chinook Regional Hospital and Medicine Hat Regional Hospital and move the South Zone Cardiac and Intensive Care Expansion Project into advanced planning and early construction.
“Any illness involving the heart is a race against time,” Smith said. “The very last thing a sick patient needs is a long journey to a bigger, faraway centre.”
Hospital and Surgical Health Services Minister Matt Jones said health professionals and community advocates should be credited with advancing the project. He highlighted the work of Dr. Zaya Zelke, physician lead for cardiac sciences in the South Zone.
Zelke described the funding as historic for the region, noting southern Alberta has a 30 per cent higher mortality rate compared with the rest of the province and cardiac risk factors 15.5 per cent higher than elsewhere in Alberta.
“This isn’t just about infrastructure and budgets. It’s about patients,” she said.
Zelke said critically ill cardiac patients in southern Alberta have often required transfer to larger centres such as Calgary and Edmonton, adding precious minutes in emergencies where time determines survival.
“I remember each of my patients that I have lost vividly. Patients who were too unstable to be airlifted, patients where the window was closing, and families who were terrified because they knew that the care that they needed was too far away,” Zelke said. “Today, in part, it’s about them. It’s about their memory and it’s in their honour that we build a system where this happens less.”
She said the expansion will mean faster diagnosis, earlier intervention and fewer transfers out of the region.
Zelke said the funding builds on strong community support, including $25 million raised through the Bringing Hearts Home campaign by the Chinook Regional Hospital Foundation.
“Our fundraising campaign, we have committed to fundraising until January of 2027,” Zelke said. “The support and the enthusiasm around the campaign has been incredible.”
She added the effort goes beyond bricks and mortar.
“This is our moment to raise awareness, to raise funds, and to bend the curve on our outcomes.”
Smith said hospital foundations play a critical role in identifying community needs and building momentum, pointing to the Bringing Hearts Home campaign.
“Our whole strategy from the start has been let’s get critical services closer to home so people don’t have to travel,” she said. “We’re sort of pushing it back by saying what can we keep in the large regional hospitals so that people don’t have to go to Calgary all the time for life-saving care.”
Parliamentary Secretary Justin Wright said visible, community-led fundraising helps at the cabinet table.
“Having a community make their voices heard by a commitment of their finances, a commitment of their time, makes it a really easy decision for government to support that,” he said. “When the community rises up, it definitely helps local representatives to share that voice and clarify the priorities of the region.”
Smith said the announcement follows earlier funding to build a catheterization lab at Chinook Regional Hospital.
Zelke said a cath lab allows physicians to perform diagnostic testing to determine what intervention is needed.
“This is also the same technology that is used to open an artery when it’s blocked and someone is having a heart attack.”
“Right now, what we do at the center is we administer thrombolytics, so clot-busting medication, and we shift the patients to Calgary to open the arteries as needed. That carries risk, it carries cost, you also have the cost of and the time of our ambulance services being on the road, and it delays care, and it’s sometimes not successful.”
The creation of a cath lab in Lethbridge is part of the expanded cardiac care services included in the funding.
