Alberta’s 2024 budget dedicates $20M to plan for stand-alone Stollery Children’s Hospital

Ahead of tabling its 2024 budget, the Alberta government announced Tuesday that if the budget passes, it will allocate $20 million over three years to advance plans for a stand-alone Stollery Children’s Hospital.

The new Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton would offer more beds, larger clinical spaces, more private rooms and dedicated areas for children and their families.

Plans also include integrating mental health resources, virtual care, research and training facilities to better support patients and improve health outcomes.

1:48 Stollery Children’s Hospital gets more money to advance planning on a stand-alone building

The current Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton has 236 beds, and is the second largest children’s hospital in Canada. It has among the highest inpatient volumes of any children’s hospital in Canada, according to the province. It is connected to the University of Alberta Hospital.

“A new, stand-alone children’s hospital will build capacity and enable health-care providers to continue delivering world-class care to children,” Health Minister Adriana LaGrande said in a news release.

“This investment, as well as other capital investments outlined in Budget 2024, is an example of how we are creating a more unified and efficient health-care system for Albertans.”

Budget 2024 would allocate $17 million in new funding from the provincial government. That’s on top of $1 million that was invested in the project in 2021 and $3 million allocated in last year’s budget. The province’s total investment over four years would be about $21 million.

“This remarkable investment will take us one step closer to our goal of building a reimagined Stollery Children’s Hospital for the future,” said Karen Faulkner, interim CEO of the Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation.

“A new Stollery is poised to provide the most innovative, modern and family-centred physical and mental health care to help bring hope and comfort to kids dealing with serious illness and injury.”

1:42 Alberta government exploring a stand-alone Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton

The current Stollery Children’s Hospital opened in 2001 and sees about 300,000 children per year. The hospital sees 55,000 emergency room visits each year and performs about 12,000 surgeries.

The hospital serves families in a geographical area of more than 500,000 square kilometres, stretching from Red Deer to Alberta’s border with the Northwest Territories.

Nearly 40 per cent of the patients at the Stollery come from outside of Edmonton.

“A new Stollery Children’s Hospital is urgently needed to provide dedicated care for our children,” said Shelley Cormier, the parent of a Stollery patient.

“By separating kids from adults, a stand-alone Stollery ensures a nurturing environment and the most modern pediatric equipment and resources to offer families like ours a health-care space designed exclusively for our children.”

The Alberta finance minister will table the 2024 budget on Thursday afternoon.

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