AHS senior operating officer for Grande Prairie Stacy Greening at Monday's announcement of two more operating suites being completed at the Grande Prairie Regional Hospital. Photo by Liam Verster.

By Curtis Galbraith

Health

More ORs at GPRH means more surgeries, more people recovering at home: AHS

Jul 20, 2021 | 12:00 PM

One local official says having 11 operating rooms at the Grande Prairie Regional Hospital will “expand what we do.”

Provincial politicians were in Grande Prairie Monday to announce that two more operating rooms have been built at the Regional Hospital, meaning it will have 11.

AHS senior operating officer for Grande Prairie Stacy Greening says having two more operating suites will mean more surgeries like cataract and orthopedic procedures will be done, among many others.

“Because of radiation therapy that’s going to be in the building, as well, we’ll likely see additional cancer surgeries being performed,” said Greening.

“We are the regional trauma centre for this area of the province and so we will continue to serve trauma patients no differently than we do now. If someone needs life-saving intervention because they’ve had a traumatic experience, if we can do that in Grande Prairie, we absolutely do that.”

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Greening says Grande Prairie has the largest surgical program in the AHS North Zone.

She adds it is important that people get the surgeries they need in their own community whenever possible.

“We know that healing is optimized when you can heal with your support system in place and so you can go home (the) day of surgery or a couple days after depending on what surgery you’ve had. You can be with your family. They can take care of you. All of us want to take care of our loved ones after they’ve had surgery.”

Greening says sometimes elective surgeries can be put off if operating rooms are needed for trauma surgery, but having more operating rooms should minimize the need to do that.

She adds there is what she calls calls “a robust plan in place” when the time comes to relocate services from the QE II to the Grande Prairie Regional Hospital.

Greening says patient safety will be the top priority.

“We’re working with experts. What they do is they move hospitals, and they move people,” said Greening.

“They’ve done that over and over and over again and so they are informing what that can look like, the benefits they’ve seen in certain approaches. We’re really leaning on them as well as our clinical experts at the front line to build that plan out.”

Provincial politicians again said at the announcement that the Grande Prairie Regional Hospital will be open to patients by the end of this year