It was supposed to have happened six years ago. Then it didn’t. Then it was replaced by a bus. But now, plans to have a full-time dialysis ward inside the W. J. Cadzow hospital are back on track.
"We are making a permanent place for dialysis treatment in Lac La Biche at the hospital," Lac La Biche-St. Paul MLA Ray Danyluk told the Post last Thursday.
The community is currently one of three across the province receiving dialysis services from a specially-equipped bus provided by Alberta Health Services and the Northern Alberta Renal Program. But the three-times weekly arrival of the bus on the Hinton- Whitecourt-Lac La Biche route has seen several interruptions over the last 18 months of its service, including cancelled visits due to mechanical difficulties, staffing issues, poor driving conditions and compatibility problems with hospital infrastructure.
Those roadblocks affect 15 patients on its route, including the five dialysis recipients in the Lac La Biche area.
Currently, there are 15 patients on a waiting list for the bus' service in the communities it serves, including four in Lac La Biche.
Danyluk said a permanent unit inside the hospital will mean un-disrupted service for the current dialysis users, plus others who currently travel to Edmonton or St. Paul for the life-saving weekly and twice-weekly treatment.
"The actual planning is starting right now for the hospital renovations,' Danyluk said. "We are hoping, according to the minister (of Health) that in a year the unit will be up and running in the W. J. Cadzow hospital."
To make the 12-month wait go a little more smoothly for patients requiring the dialysis treatments, Danyluk also said the bus will be upgraded.
"The bus is going to be retrofitted," he said. "We'll be adding a sixth dialysis station on it."
The retrofit will also include upgrades for hook-ups at the local hospital, and features making the $2 million vehicle more winter-ready.
Staffing for the bus — and then the new unit in the hospital — is also being re-examined to have local nurses provide the dialysis treatments. It's a big project, and one the MLA says is something that should have been done right the first time.
“The system for Lac La Biche needs to be a permanent location. It always was to be,” he said, calling the bus service an “interim solution.”
With the bus now off the road while its upgrades are completed, patients in the area will be provided assistance with their transportation to the St. Paul dialysis unit by Alberta Health Services.
The bus upgrades are expected to be completed by May 22.
A permanent dialysis unit in Lac La Biche was promised four and a half years ago. As the plans moved ahead at that time, however, budgeting concerns forced the government to re-think the unit. The bus service was offered as a replacement.
The bus first arrived in Lac La Biche in the fall of 2010, three years after discussions of a new dialysis unit first took place.
Although Danyluk didn’t have exact cost estimates for the hospital addition, Deanna Paulson, AHS’ executive director for the Northern Alberta Renal Program, told the Post in an earlier interview that a basic unit could cost more than $2.5 million, and that doesn’t include the $25,000 dialysis machines or the additional staff required for the specialized treatment she said, adding that staffing generally accounts for 80 per cent of costs.
Across Alberta, more than 2,000 people require regular dialysis treatments.
Once the hospital ward is operational and the dialysis bus is no longer needed, the vehicle will be sent to another community to provide mobile assistance, said Danyluk.
