For women expecting a baby in Slave Lake, giving birth at the local hospital was once an option.
That is no longer the case, according to staff at the Slave Lake Healthcare Centre, who told the Lakeside Leader this week that the hospital is currently unable to perform childbirths and that expectant mothers are typically sent to Edmonton to receive care.
The situation marks a significant change for a community that, only a few years ago, had a fully functioning obstetrics program capable of handling deliveries and C-sections.
The change appears to have begun in 2023, when Alberta Health Services (AHS) suspended obstetric services at the Slave Lake Healthcare Centre because of staffing and anesthetist shortages.
According to AHS records, the hospital’s obstetrics service was shut down beginning May 8, 2023. The initial closure was described as temporary and was attributed to shortages caused by illness, leave, vacation and vacant positions. AHS initially expected the service to resume in October 2023, but the closure was repeatedly extended.
By April 2024, AHS was listing the obstetrics closure as extending from May 8, 2023, to June 10, 2024, again citing temporary staff and anesthetist shortages.
But the service did not simply return to normal.
On May 30, 2024, AHS changed the description of the disruption. Instead of a complete closure, the hospital was listed as redirecting emergency C-sections and imminent deliveries to alternate sites, while scheduled C-sections could proceed at Slave Lake.
The reason remained a shortage of clinical personnel. That restriction continued for years.
As recently as June 19, 2026, AHS was listing Slave Lake Healthcare Centre’s obstetrics department as partially closed to all deliveries and urgent C-sections because of a clinical personnel shortage.
Scheduled C-sections were still listed as available, with the restriction shown as beginning May 30, 2024 and extending to June 22, 2026.
However, when the Lakeside Leader contacted the hospital on Aug. 11, staff said the hospital currently cannot perform childbirths and that mothers are generally sent to Edmonton.
That means the practical situation for expectant mothers appears to be considerably different from what the AHS website currently suggests.
AHS continues to list Slave Lake Healthcare Centre as a location providing obstetrics. Its online description says the service provides prenatal, perinatal, postnatal and surgical obstetric care for low-risk pregnant women more than 36 weeks, including labour induction, epidurals and elective, urgent and emergency C-sections.
The discrepancy raises questions about exactly what services are currently available in Slave Lake and whether the hospital’s obstetrics program has effectively remained restricted since 2023.
A service that once handled about 140 births a year
The loss is particularly notable because Slave Lake’s obstetrics program was a significant rural healthcare service.
An AHS accreditation report from spring 2021 described the obstetrics department as a 24-hour service averaging about 140 deliveries per year.
The report said the hospital had a designated delivery room, access to an operating room and two anesthetists. Six full-time staff members had received extended obstetrics training, including experience at tertiary hospitals.
Women who had uncomplicated vaginal deliveries generally stayed in hospital for 24 hours, while those who underwent C-sections or had other health concerns generally stayed for 72 hours.
The program had been rebuilt after an earlier period when C-sections were unavailable.
In January 2016, AHS announced that full obstetric services had returned to Slave Lake after being unavailable at that level for about five years. The service included C-sections, epidurals and inductions.
AHS said at the time that it had worked with local organizations and physician recruitment groups to bring doctors with the necessary skills to the community.
The return was welcomed locally as an important improvement for expectant mothers, who otherwise had to travel outside the region for some aspects of childbirth.
The recruitment effort continued.
In 2017, AHS announced the recruitment of Dr. Frank Ofori Akwa, a family physician with low-risk obstetrics and enhanced surgical skills, including the ability to perform C-sections.
AHS said he would provide obstetric care in Slave Lake and that it was attempting to recruit another physician with similar capabilities.
The goal was to ensure that women could receive both obstetric and surgical services closer to home.
That investment made the subsequent loss of the service particularly significant.
AHS’s own records indicate that staffing has been the central issue.
The 2023 closure was attributed specifically to a shortage of staff and anesthetists. Later records continued to cite clinical personnel shortages as the reason for the restrictions.
The situation also illustrates the vulnerability of rural hospitals that depend on relatively small numbers of physicians, nurses and other specialized personnel.
A maternity program cannot operate simply because a hospital has a delivery room. It requires physicians with appropriate obstetric and surgical skills, nurses with specialized training, anesthesia coverage and the ability to respond to emergencies at all times.
If any of those pieces is missing, the hospital may be unable to safely accept women in labour.
For expectant mothers, that can turn what would otherwise be a local hospital visit into a lengthy trip.
What does the change mean for local families?
The Alberta Regional Dashboard reports that the Slave Lake area recorded 88 births in 2024, down substantially from the number of births that had historically been handled through the local obstetrics program. The dashboard says the figure represents births in the Slave Lake region.
The figures therefore cannot be used to determine how many local women had to travel elsewhere to give birth. That is one of the questions AHS should answer.
How many babies were delivered at Slave Lake Healthcare Centre in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025?
How many expectant mothers were transferred or directed to other hospitals during those years?
And where are Slave Lake women being sent today? The answer is particularly important for women who go into labour unexpectedly. While scheduled deliveries can be planned around travel, labour and delivery do not always follow a schedule.
The distance involved also becomes more significant in northern communities, where weather, road conditions and the availability of transportation can add another layer of uncertainty.
A disruption that was meant to be temporary
Perhaps the most striking aspect of the situation is how long the “temporary” disruption has lasted.
AHS’s May 2023 records described the closure as temporary and initially anticipated that obstetric services would return within months. Instead, the service remained disrupted into 2024, when the description shifted to a more limited model that allowed some scheduled C-sections but diverted emergency deliveries.
By 2025, AHS was still reporting that emergency C-sections and imminent deliveries were being redirected to alternate sites, while scheduled C-sections could proceed at Slave Lake. And as of this week, hospital staff told the Lakeside Leader that childbirths are not currently being performed there.
AHS’s public information has not kept pace with that reality, or at least does not clearly explain the distinction between the obstetrics services still available at the facility and the hospital’s inability to accept women for routine childbirth. That leaves an important question for the health authority and for the community:
When will Slave Lake women be able to give birth in their own
hospital?
For a community that previously had a 24-hour obstetrics service, doctors capable of performing C-sections and roughly 140 deliveries a year, the answer may depend less on the physical infrastructure of the hospital than on whether AHS can recruit and retain the specialized personnel required to operate it.
Until then, expectant mothers in Slave Lake face the prospect of leaving the community to give birth — a significant change from the healthcare services that were available to local families only a few years ago.
William Hetherington
Lakeside Leader
