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8, No. 21 Tuesday, April8,16, 2013 Vol. 7, Vol. No. 2, Tuesday, November 2011
Lamont Health Care Centre earns top marks and national recognition through survey Hospital named one of the top ten in Canada by CBC televisions’s ‘Fifth Estate’ Michelle Pinon Editor When it comes to excellence in health care one need not look any further than the Lamont Health Care Centre (LHCC) which was recently named one of the top ten hospitals in the country. The facility received an overall A-plus rating from CBC-TV’s The Fifth Estate which conducted a sweeping investigation into Canada’s hospitals, and shared its results and stories nationally in the program which aired April 12th. According to CBC, it based its assessment on data collected from hospitals by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), a publicly funded nonprofit organization that gathers and analyzes data on Canadian hospital performance. “Data used by the CBC included rates of patients who died after major surgeries, who were readmitted after treatment and who experienced unexpected complications, known as adverse events, tied to nursing care during a hospital stay.” One person who couldn’t wait to tweet the news was Fort Saskatchewan MLA
Jacquie Fenske, who send a bouquet of flowers to LHCC staff to congratulate them. Board chair Kent Harrold and director of finance Jim Burger, were very touched by the gesture and acknowledgement from their MLA. Fenske said she was “delighted” but certainly not surprised that LHCC was rated as one of the
top 10 Canadian hospitals in the CBC survey. “Harold James and staff go out of their way to ensure the best of care, and also take immense pride in the services offered and in the facility itself.” She went onto state that: “The board, chaired by Kent Harrold, have demonstrated a caring yet progressive vision. I
have had the opportunity to tell the LHCC story several times, and hold it as an example of how health care should be provided throughout Alberta. “While the local community has always appreciated the LHCC, added Fenske, now the entire country knows about the excellent services, care, staff and facili-
ty. “What a great news story!” Lamont Mayor Bill Skinner, couldn’t agree more with Fenske. “It’s a first class facility...To have them recognized is quite a distinction.” Skinner added that Lamont is very fortunate to have this kind of facility as well as all of the top notch services it provides given the size of
the community. “It’s a real feather in our cap,” said Harrold, who has served on the board of directors for 40 years and chair for the past three years. “We have a lot of surgical activity at the hospital,” added Harrold, who has also been a patient having undergone cataract surgery over a year ago. In fact, cataract removal counted for half of all surgical procedures offered at the hospital in 2012-’13. Out of the 2,579 procedures this past year, 1,250 of them were cataract removal. Second on the list of procedures was endoscopy, approximately 697 cases, according to LHCC records. Gynecology ranked third with 108 cases followed by Ears, Nose and Throat surgeries which had 94 cases. Dr. Ravji, only one of two podiatrists in Alberta, performed 29 surgeries during the past year. Burger noted that Lamont’s geographical location and proximity to the Capital Region is an added plus when it comes to access to physicians and directly relates to the number of day surgeries.
MICHELLE PINON PHOTO
Kent Harrold, left, chair of the Lamont Health Care Centre (LHCC) holds a bouquet of flowers with Jim Burger, LHCC director of finance. The flowers were sent by Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville MLA Jacquie Fenske to congratulate everyone for their hard work and dedication.
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