Pearl Lorentzen
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Lakeside Leader
Chemo for Slave Lake has reformed and is trying one last push to bring chemotherapy to the Lesser Slave Lake region.
“This project has been going for four or five years,” says Harry Bartlett, who has been involved since the beginning.
Doug Babiy started it in 2021, after his daughter died from cancer. The family asked for donations to bring chemo to Slave Lake in lieu of flowers at her funeral and raised around $20,000.
Back then, the group met several times, got testimonials from people, and met with health officials. They were told no, because there weren’t enough patients needed chemotherapy in the area.
Babiy also moved away. The group went dormant. Members of the committee attended both of the health care restructuring community engagements in Slave Lake over the last two years. Recently, they met as a group again.
“It was an optimistic meeting,” says Bartlett.
“I think it went good,” agrees Jennifer Churchill, executive director of Alberta North Central Alliance (ANCA), an advocacy group that represents local municipalities and Indigenous communities.
The meeting focused on “what’s the barriers? And what’s the numbers?” said Churchill.
There were 12 people at the meeting including Churchill, Town of Slave Lake CAO Alex Pavcek, Bartlett, Babiy, a representative from the Slave Lake Ladies Hospital Auxiliary, two local health care workers, a business owner interested in helping pay for the costs, and two community members who are (or their spouses are) being treated with chemo right now.
Of the health care workers, Bartlett says, “they were extremely valuable in terms of where we go from here.”
The plan is for the health care workers to gather the chemo numbers for the area and what the numbers would be required to get a unit, says Bartlett.
Churchill says, “once you know the barriers you can try to work towards that as opposed to no.”
If there aren’t enough patients to have a full-time unit in Slave Lake, he adds, the group would like to investigate three days in Slave Lake and two in High Prairie.
The new High Prairie hospital includes a space for chemo, says Churchill, but it isn’t staffed.
“It’s never been opened or used by anybody,” says Bartlett.
In Slave Lake, a possibility might be renovating the old emergency services area, says Bartlett.
In an email, Pavcek says, “from the town standpoint, we are able to advocate along with the other groups, and provide meeting space at this time, as the group progresses the town may opt to have more participation, at the direction of council.”
The municipalities and Indigenous governments that are part of ANCA decided that ANCA’s priorities this year are researching and advocating for better health care and access to housing.
The Lesser Slave Lake region is nine per cent of Alberta’s land mass, says Churchill, but there are several gaps. For instance, none of the hospitals in the area (Slave Lake, Swan Hills, High Prairie, or Wabasca) are delivering babies.
Slave Lake, High Prairie and Swan Hills are listed as temporary closures, because of lack of staff.
Three of these communities have been fundraising for health care in their communities, says Churchill. High Prairie is working toward a helicopter pad, Slave Lake chemo, and Wabasca dialysis.
“All three of them are just told no,” says Churchill.