A massive $35-million medical project being built in Grande Prairie is hoping to get Slave Lake on board to help train the next generation of doctors.
Kenneth N. Drysdale, chairman of the board for the Maskwa Medical Center, visited town council on June 2 to share an update on the facility, which is aiming to open its doors in June 2027.
The three-storey, 107,000-square-foot building is going up right next to the Grande Prairie Regional Hospital. Once finished, the non-profit charity will act as a teaching clinic for the University of Alberta and offer a team-based specialist clinic that will not charge patients any fees.
The idea for the center is deeply personal. The Maskwa website says the vision began back in 2008 when Drysdale’s wife was given just four to six months to live by an Alberta cancer specialist. Unwilling to accept that answer, the couple traveled to the Mayo Clinic in the United States, where a whole team of specialists worked together to give her a new, corrected prognosis. Now, Maskwa wants to bring that same collaborative ‘Mayo Clinic’ model to Northern Alberta so families do not have to travel so far in their darkest hours.
For residents of the Northwest, getting specialist care is currently a huge burden. Drysdale told council that a consultant study found about 2,700 people from the region had to travel South for care in 2024.
“That’s about $7 million out of Northwest residents’ pockets to go to those visits, and that’s each and every year,” Drysdale said.
To help fix this, Maskwa’s goal is to give patients a treatment plan within 10 days of walking through their clinic doors.
The first floor of the facility will feature an academic teaching clinic that trains 20 family physicians in a two-year program, graduating 10 doctors each year. By training doctors locally, the hope is that they will put down roots in the region instead of moving away. Drysdale explained that a student from Slave Lake could spend up to 15 years in Grande Prairie finishing their degrees and residency.
“That’s why a lot of our young people that leave to go to Edmonton, Calgary, or Toronto don’t return, because they’ve created their life somewhere else,” Drysdale said.
Building the center is a huge team effort that relies on a mix of government, municipal, and private support.
Just last week, on May 27, the project received a $400,000 grant from the RBC Foundation to cover the cost of installing two elevators to make the building fully accessible.
Other municipalities are also stepping up in big ways. In late April, the M.D. of Greenview approved a $5.85 million municipal guarantee to help support a $23.3 million construction loan for the center.
In his presentation package, Drysdale included a breakdown showing what it would cost if every municipality chipped in. At a suggested rate of $170 per resident, Slave Lake’s share would be $1,246,780. But Drysdale made it clear he was not looking for a cheque right now.
“I’m not here to ask for any of that today,” Drysdale said.
He explained that private donations can lower that number over time, noting that a single resident in High Prairie recently donated $500,000 to the cause.
Instead, Drysdale asked council to help find a local “education champion” who could visit schools to tell students about the medical training happening in Grande Prairie.
“They can start thinking early that they don’t have to go far from home to become a doctor or nurse,” Drysdale said. He also asked for a community champion to help with local fundraising.
Council seemed impressed by the progress and the ambition of the project.
“I think it is absolutely incredible that you saw a need and are stepping up to provide this service for the people of this province,” Councillor Cindy Williams said.
Following the presentation, council passed a motion to bring the information to the next Tri-Council Health Committee meeting to explore how they might work together in future.
Armaan Khanna
Local Journalism Initiative
Reporter