Photo Courtesy EGP Staff

By Tanner Smith

Healthcare

Sargent Family Kidney Care Centre ribbon-cutting ceremony

Oct 25, 2025 | 11:00 AM

A new Kidney Care Centre at the QEII held its official ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday, Oct. 24.

Multiple local dignitaries were on hand for the opening of the Sargent Family Kidney Care Centre, located inside the old cancer centre, including Grande Prairie-Wapiti MLA Ron Weibe.

With the facility receiving $2.4 million in provincial funding to build, Weibe says it shows the government’s priority to “move health services back into rural communities.”

“Premier Smith really, really acknowledges that rural Alberta is important to this province, and a lot of our resources that fuel the rest of the province come from this area. So when we see an investment back into our community, it’s very, very exciting.”

Photo Courtesy EGP Staff

The remaining $1.5 million in funding for this project was provided by the Sargent family, with Ken Sargent highlighting the effective use of space, recycling an old building to expand the clinic’s capacity, and supporting people and families from across the north.

“This enhances so many people, enhances families, reduces stress, gives them a better chance to just go through kidney issues, whatever it may be. So it just feels great to be able to help the families out in the entire region.”

“People don’t have to travel to Edmonton anymore, etc, they can stay here, and if you’ve got your family with you, you’re going to do that much better.”

The centre will host four different kidney health hubs and act as a “one-stop shop,” according to Alberta Kidney Care North Patient Care Manager, Andrew Kawan.

“So, we have our satellite or outpatient hemodialysis. We’ve already expanded an additional chair, which actually can serve an additional nine patients per week.”

“We’ve also consolidated our peritoneal dialysis area here. So, that was something new that we just introduced in 2022. We have a diabetic nephropathy prevention clinic that serves 400 patients. That’s a service that we’re consolidating, and we’ve just opened up a new clinic, which is the chronic kidney disease clinic.”

Photo Courtesy EGP Staff

In addition to kidney clinics, the centre now also has an expanded reverse osmosis machine, which is used to distill the city’s water and create ultrapure water for dialysis treatments.

According to AHS, spaces like this are becoming increasingly more important, as we see “an aging population, rising diabetes rates leading to renal failure, and patients living longer on dialysis due to medical advancements.”