Province to help 30 Alberta municipalities boost rural primary care clinics with matching grants

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Alberta’s rural municipalities have until the end of the month to express interest in $200,000 two-year matching grants to boost their primary health care landscape with team-based care.

To get the funding, they will need to contribute up to $200,000 in matching cash and have an established building to house it.

Grant criteria for an estimated 30 grants announced Tuesday calls for a “defined need for team-based models of care, being an eligible rural and remote community,” and a sustainability plan.

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“With that funding, municipalities could take over ownership or support operations of an existing primary care clinic within their community,” said Health Minister Adriana LaGrange at a Tuesday news conference.

“These grants build on our recently announced rural health action plan to improve rural health care, and are part of our unwavering commitment to address rural health challenges,” LaGrange said.

Expressions of interest in a piece of the $6-million municipality supported clinics rural primary health care matching grants are being accepted until the end of November.

Dr. Shelley Duggan, president of the Alberta Medical Association, said team-based care means physicians can look after more patients and “potentially have a bigger panel,” she said.

“The municipality grant means if your clinic is struggling, and you’re having a hard time making ends meet, then it’s feasible that your, local municipality can help you out,” Duggan said.

“Will that help with retention? Maybe, right? It might help clinics stay open if they weren’t already going to be able to do so,” she said.

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At Tuesday’s news conference, Dr. Rithesh Ram, a Drumheller physician and president of the rural medicine section of the Alberta Medical Association, said rural generalists are vital to the economic pipeline for rural Alberta.

“Without us, you would see the economic diversity and prosperity of communities diminished,” he said, adding the province needs a “preventative health blanket to stem the flow of health care dollars to costly hospital visits that can and should be prevented.

“Team-based care may be new for the majority of city practices but in rural we have been working in teams for decades.”

Rural emergency departments, acute care, community cancer centers, rural operating and delivery rooms, and rural community clinics, are “specialists in our unique field of medicine for the largest breadth and depth of knowledge and skills in any physician specialty,” Ram said.

“Rural generalists will continue to do what we can to keep lights on in our offices and our hospitals. Keeping my rural community safe and healthy is a much more complicated situation than in the major cities because as rural generalists, we provide true full-scope patient care,” he said.

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The province also set aside $6 million for rural team recruitment grants that are expected to support community organizations and clinics in hiring additional non-physician team members to increase capacity and improve access within their clinics, a release from LaGrange’s office said.

“The rural team recruitment grant will give organizations and clinics the ability to hire additional team members in eligible rural communities,” said West Yellowhead UCP MLA Martin Long, parliamentary secretary for rural health. “This will increase patient access to primary health care across the province.”

jcarmichael@postmedia.com

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