Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek is the latest municipal politician to express her concerns over the situation at the Airdrie Urgent Care.

On Thursday (July 21), Alberta Health Services (AHS) announced that  Airdrie Urgent Care would be closed on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights from 10:00 pm until 7:00 am over the next eight weeks.  AHS said the closure was due to a lack of available doctors and said anyone requiring emergency treatment would get it by being assessed, triaged and referred to alternative sites or local medical clinics for follow-up treatment.  The closures began last night.  

On Friday, Airdrie Mayor Brown expressed his frustration with the closure, saying the situation was unacceptable and left a city of nearly 80,000 residents without 24-hour emergency services.  

Now, Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek is laying out her concerns over the Airdrie closure, calling it "dire" and saying it will not only affect Airdrie, but the entire region, and has the potential for massive impacts.    

Gondek says Calgary's busy hospitals already see patients from Airdrie and other communities in the proximity of Calgary and this closure will bring more patients to those facilities.  Gondek also says that many people living in north Calgary, where there is no health care facility, come to Airdrie for health care. 

Yesterday a meeting of the Calgary Metropolitan Regional Board was held with the partners in the group calling for a meeting with Alberta Health Minister Jason Copping to find answers to situations such as the Airdrie temporary closure.   

When the Airdrie facility is closed, AHS says that new patients will not be admitted after 8 p.m., but that nurses will be on hand to triage people who arrive at the health facility and help them get to another emergency department if needed.

According to AHS, in 2020-2021 the Airdrie Urgent Care Centre saw nearly 30,000 patients.

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