Beaver County Council provided funding support to the Tofield and Viking health foundations at council’s regular November 20 meeting.
At the same time as providing praise to the health foundations for their valuable work, the county also questioned why they are buying medical equipment that Alberta Health Services should be providing.
The Health Foundation Support Policy provides funding based on population census figures.
With 3,873 persons in the Tofield service area, or 66 per cent of the population in Beaver County, the Tofield and Area Health Foundation receives $13,200 of the available $20,000 allotted for the foundations.
The Viking service area has 1,995 of the total 5,868 residents in the county, or 34 per cent of the population, and receives $6,800.
The numbers are based on the 2021 federal census, said Ryan Arndt, general manager of corporate services.
He noted that each foundation provided financial statements. Viking provided a report of the prior year’s projects and the benefit the foundation could receive from the county grant funding.
To that, Councillor Lionel Williams (Division 2) said he felt there were some items provided by the hospital foundation that Alberta Health Services should be supplying.
Listing some items, he said: “Some of that stuff sounds medical. That should be supplied by AHS.”
But Councillor Dale Pederson (Division 5) felt that the foundation provides items that are not required but are of benefit to patients.
Williams said it might be an idea to advocate for the hospitals in Tofield and Viking to get more medical supplies and equipment and “the funds from Beaver County could go for other things.”
After Williams’ motion giving funds to the Tofield and Area Health Foundation was passed, his suggestion on advocating on behalf of the health foundations also was acted upon.
Deputy Reeve Gene Hrabec (Division 3) made a motion that a letter from the Reeve be written to Camrose MLA Jackie Lovely regarding the situation in Beaver County where health foundations are purchasing medical items they said AHS should be paying for.
“I think it should be AHS and not that poor health foundation (doing the purchasing),” said Williams. “I’m all for finding out.”
Councillor Barry Bruce (Division 4) agreed with Williams, stating that funding is slowly going down from the province resulting in “this downloading of equipment” needs onto local foundation boards.
He pointed to equipment like respirators that can adjust to the needs of each patient that he said should be standard equipment in a hospital as they are part of EMS. Instead, funds have to be found outside of AHS for this expensive but valuable piece of equipment.
Council passed the motion to send a letter to the MLA questioning the funding needs for local hospitals, and why AHS does not pay for medical equipment instead of the foundations.
Patricia Harcourt
Editor
