The province will commit $3.4 billion for health facilities over the next five years and announced on Monday that it will create a new cancer centre at the South Health Campus and expand cancer services at Foothills Medical Centre.

“I am pleased to confirm that we will build a new cancer centre in Calgary at South Health Campus. We’ll start construction as soon as possible and aim to complete is in 2020,” said Stephen Mandel, Minister of Health.

The new cancer centre will be phase one of a two phase process that will include the expansion of cancer services at Foothills Hospital.

 “There is no scaling down on ambition but rather than building on a single site, which is extraordinarily expensive and difficult to build on, the facilities that Albertans expect and have asked for will be built on two sites over time,” said Premier Jim Prentice. “Albertans are asking that they have the capacity to receive patient treatment in both facilities, this is a plan that will do that. We won’t have one facility, we’ll have multiple facilities.”

The health minister says that a new urgent care centre is also being planned for Airdrie in partnership with the community.

The Alberta government says the new capital plan will boost facility construction and maintenance in Calgary and Southern Alberta and that $2.7 billion will be spent on ongoing and new construction projects across the province.

The province says maintenance funding will be increased next year from $70 million to $111 million and will be more than double the current level by 2018-19.

“You cannot effectively maintain the assets of the province, the people of Alberta’s assets, unless you have significant investment in maintenance funding and as the premier said, these are sometimes not the most exciting projects out there but it is the most prudent and disciplined thing to do,” said  Manmeet S. Bhullar, Minister of Infrastructure. “Over a five year period we will be spending $653 million on the maintenance of various health projects throughout the province of Alberta.”

So far, 300 projects have been identified for maintenance and over $146 million will be spent on them over the next two years. In addition, more than $80 million has also been budgeted for further priorities.

The capital plan also includes $25 million per year for the replacement and upgrading of medical equipment.

Major capital projects in Calgary include:

  • A new cancer centre at South Health Campus, as Phase 1 of a two-site model for cancer care in Calgary; future expansion of cancer services at Foothills Medical Centre will be planned within the Foothills site master plan
  • Peter Lougheed Centre women’s services and vascular renovations
  • McCaig Tower capacity expansion and renovations
  • Renovations and expansion of Emergency Departments at Peter Lougheed Centre and South Health Campus (pediatrics)

Major projects in southern Alberta include:

  • A new urgent care centre in Airdrie (along with Beaverlodge and Sylvan Lake), based on a new template design that will be repeatable, scale-able, and cost-effective
  • Red Deer obstetrical unit renovations
  • Funding for ongoing projects to redevelop or replace Raymond and Taber Health Centres, Lethbridge Chinook Regional Hospital, and Medicine Hat Regional Hospital

The province says the projects will be managed by the new AHS operational districts.