Healthcare service restoration for Fort McMurray continues

FORT McMURRAY – The temporary Fort McMurray Medical Centre at the Keyano Syncrude Sport and Wellness Centre will close tonight (June 28), as more healthcare services continue to return to the city.

The temporary Fort McMurray Medical Centre (FMCC) provided important primary care and family medicine, as well as physician psychiatry services since mid-June, until regular services could return to normal operations.

Most local physician offices – including the Wood Buffalo PCN - are now open in Fort McMurray. Residents are encouraged to contact their family physician for routine healthcare needs.

As of today, the majority of Public Health services available before the wildfire have returned, including: the Well Child clinic, the Adult Immunization clinic, the Travel clinic, the Breast-feeding clinic, Healthy Beginnings, Communicable Disease, Tuberculosis, Healthy Families and Health Promotion.

The Public Health office can be reached at 780-791-6247 for more information.

Residents of Fort McMurray now have access to almost all healthcare services that were available in the city before the wildfire.

Northern Lights Regional Health Centre has returned to providing full comprehensive health care services. This includes Ambulatory Care services such as endoscopy and exercise stress testing.

Dialysis services resumed on June 22, and the first five long term care patients evacuated from the hospital on May 3 returned on June 23.

A phased re-opening of the Fort McMurray Cancer Centre will begin July 11, 2016. More information will be shared in the coming days. For any questions or concerns, please call Alberta Cancer Line at 1-888-432-8865.

The latest phased reopening of services follows the return to core Regional Hospital health care services on June 13. That phase saw the resumption of medical and surgical inpatient, ICU, OR, obstetrical, pediatric, and inpatient psychiatry services.

Emergency Department, laboratory, and diagnostic imaging (XRay & CT) services returned on June 1.

Home care staff have returned to their office space at the Thickwood Medical Centre (#203 108 Wolverine Drive). We encourage home care clients to notify staff of their return plans so that

services can be arranged. The Adult Day Program will operate from a trailer at the Keyano Syncrude Sport and Wellness Centre from July 4.

Inpatient and outpatient pediatric services are fully operational at NLRHC. However, full speech, language and audiology services have not been restored to NLRHC and restoration of these services is anticipated in the next few weeks

Addiction and mental health services relocated to the Fort McMurray Queen Street Building (10217 Queen Street) on June 10th. Walk-in and scheduled appointments are available. Services are open seven days a week, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The roving Community Wellness team will continue to provide support throughout the city and team members are available from 6 a.m. until 9 p.m. and on call overnight. The team can be reached by calling 780-370-0182 or 780-792-6378.

For the most up-to-date information about healthcare services including pharmacies, lab, diagnostic imaging, family physician clinics and emergency medical services in Fort McMurray please visit ahs.ca/wildfire. For non-emergency health advice - including information on your healthcare options - call Health Link at 811.

Alberta Health Services is the provincial health authority responsible for planning and delivering health supports and services for more than four million adults and children living in Alberta. Its mission is to provide a patient-focused, quality health system that is accessible and sustainable for all Albertans.

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