Alberta hitting pause on South Edmonton Hospital, health minister says

The Alberta government is hitting pause on the South Edmonton Hospital project as it plans to create a standalone Stollery Children's Hospital facility, Health Minister Adriana LaGrange said Tuesday.

Moving children out of the University of Alberta Hospital, where the Stollery is situated, will free up more than 200 adult spaces, LaGrange told a news conference.

"On the South Edmonton Hospital, we are pausing to have a more comprehensive look at how we can better serve the needs of Edmontonians and all of the north of Alberta that utilizes facilities within Edmonton," LaGrange said.

LaGrange didn't provide a timeline of how long the province plans to pause the project. The hospital would be built on a 320-acre site in the Rutherford area near Ellerslie Road and 127th Street S.W.

The NDP government of the time announced the hospital in 2017 to serve the city's rapidly expanding southwest neighbourhoods. It planned to start construction in 2020.

After the United Conservative Party formed government in 2019, it said the opening of the new hospital for south Edmonton would be delayed by three years, from 2027 to 2030. 

As recently as last year's capital budget, the government had set a target of spending $634 million on the project by 2025-26.

'Outrageous,' NDP critic says

Alberta NDP health critic Luanne Metz said Tuesday the South Edmonton Hospital is crucial to serve the city's fast growing population, especially since primary care in the province is in critical condition.

"We're pushing more and more people to need hospital care. It is outrageous that this is happening, especially when we know that these hospitals are needed now and they take years to build and we're not even going to continue with the planning of them," Metz said. 

"We're just making the backlog and the stress on the system worse for more years into the future."

Finance Minister Nate Horner will introduce Alberta's 2024 budget on Thursday.

In the pre-budget announcement Tuesday, which committed $20 million over three years to the standalone Stollery Children's Hospital project, the government said the new facility will offer more beds, larger clinical spaces, more private rooms and dedicated areas for children and their families.