Health
Better, Faster Health Care for Sylvan Lake

Residents and visitors to Sylvan Lake can now receive treatment for non-life-threatening injuries, including stitches and basic fractures, 16 hours a day, including evenings and weekends.
A grand opening celebration for the new Sylvan Lake Ambulatory Care Centre will be held this Thursday at the NexSource Centre. The event will be attended by Minister of Health Sarah Hoffman, Sylvan Lake Mayor Sean McIntyre, community leaders, members of the urgent care committee and residents.
“This day has been a long time coming for Sylvan Lake. We heard the community’s call for improved health-care services and we acted. I’m glad we’re helping families and visitors receive the treatment they need right in Sylvan Lake. I thank residents, community leaders and physicians for working with us to bring a higher level of care to this community.”
– Sarah Hoffman, Minister of Health
“As a community, we can all breathe a sigh of relief after years of hard work – teamwork, because we now have the kind of access to non-life-threatening health and medical services our community needs. We now have a facility and expertise that can meet the needs of the Sylvan Lake area’s 25,000 residents, as well as the needs of visitors to our community throughout the year. This leaves me with such a strong sense of community spirit and appreciation for everyone who has partnered together to make the Sylvan Lake Ambulatory Care Centre a reality.”
– Sean McIntyre, mayor, Sylvan Lake
The province invested $2.3 million on renovations to the Sylvan Lake Community Health Centre to deliver a higher level of care, including new treatment spaces, a modernized waiting area and installation of a nurse call system. A local fundraising campaign by the Sylvan Lake Urgent Care Committee raised $240,000 for equipment, including an ECG machine, infusion pumps, stretchers and a portable patient lift.
“This much-needed, valuable medical service was made possible by the understanding and commitment of the Alberta government and our close working relationship with AHS. We are grateful for the ongoing support and look forward to assisting the advanced ambulatory care service wherever possible.”
– Susan Samson, chair, Sylvan Lake Urgent Care Committee
The new service provides diagnosis and treatment for urgent, but non-life-threatening conditions, including minor cuts, burns, muscle and joint strains, simple fractures and mental health issues.
“We are thrilled to now officially offer advanced ambulatory care service in Sylvan Lake. The opportunity to develop a service like this from the ground up, with the partnership of AHS, Sylvan Lake community members and physicians is not something that comes along very often, and we are so grateful for the relationships that have been built and strengthened through this process. The work of multiple AHS teams, the Sylvan Lake Urgent Care Committee, as well as the time given by local physicians to help us reach this point is truly appreciated.”
– Andrea Thain Liptak, executive director, Community Based Services for AHS Central Zone
Enhanced care is available seven days a week from 7:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. at the Sylvan Lake Community Health Centre.
For more stories visit Todayville.com
Red Deer
Red Deer Regional Health Foundation Announces Historic Gift to Transform Cardiac Care in Central Alberta

The Red Deer Regional Health Foundation is honored to announce a historic $10 million donation that will bring life – saving cardiac care to Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre.
This extraordinary gift, generously contributed by Joan Donald, John and Heather Donald, and Peter and Kathy Lacey, is the largest donation in the foundation’s history and will play a critical role in establishing the previously announced interim cardiac catheterization lab at Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre.
“For too long, Central Albertans have faced an unacceptable reality—if you suffer a heart attack in Red Deer, you must be transported to Calgary or Edmonton for the care you need,” said Manon Therriault, CEO of the Red Deer Regional Health Foundation. “And when every second counts, that distance can mean the difference between life and death.
Thanks to this transformational gift, more lives will be saved, and more families will be spared the fear of waiting for a transfer.”
The impact of this generosity is profound. With the interim cardiac catheterization lab, it is estimated that 160 lives will be saved in the 5 years leading up to the establishment of a permanent lab. Patients will receive timely, specialized care closer to home, significantly improving outcomes and reducing the burden on families.
“A gift like this does not happen by chance—it takes vision, leadership, and an unwavering commitment to community,” Manon added. “Joan, John, Heather, Peter, and Kathy have set a powerful example of what philanthropy can achieve. Their generosity is not just a donation; it is a legacy of life-saving care for generations to come.”
This milestone underscores the crucial role of philanthropy in advancing healthcare. The Red Deer Regional Health Foundation extends its deepest gratitude to the Donald and Lacey families for their remarkable generosity and commitment to a healthier future for Central Alberta.
Health
Oxford study finds transgender surgery increases depression, suicide ideation rates

From LifeSiteNews
This study, along with scores of others conducted in recent years, explodes the media-enforced narrative that so-called ‘gender transition’ procedures are beneficial for the gender-confused.
A study published in the Oxford Journal of Sexual Medicine found that undergoing so-called “sex change” surgery, far from reducing depression rates among the gender dysphoric, substantially increased rates not only of depression, but of anxiety, suicidal ideation, and substance use disorders.
Males who underwent transgender surgery had a depression rate of 25.4 percent, compared to 11.5 percent in those who did not have surgery. Likewise, females who underwent surgery had a depression rate of 22.9 percent, compared to 14.6 percent in those who did not.
The study notes that males undergoing “feminizing” surgeries demonstrated a particularly high risk for depression and substance use disorders.
“From 107,583 patients, matched cohorts demonstrated that those undergoing surgery were at significantly higher risk for depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and substance use disorders than those without surgery,” the researchers found.
Rather than concluding that so-called “gender affirming” surgery is a dangerous, unnecessary practice that should be discontinued because it puts patients’ lives at risk, the researchers instead suggest that that their findings show a need for “gender-sensitive mental health support following gender-affirming surgery to address post-surgical psychological risks.”
Exploding the myth
This study, along with scores of others conducted in recent years, explodes the media-enforced narrative that so-called “gender transition” procedures are beneficial or even “necessary” for the happiness and well-being of the gender-confused.
A significant body of evidence now shows that “affirming” gender confusion carries serious harms, especially when done with impressionable children who lack the mental development, emotional maturity, and life experience to consider the long-term ramifications of the decisions being pushed on them or full knowledge about the long-term effects of life-altering, physically transformative, and often irreversible surgical and chemical procedures.
Studies find that more than 80 percent of children suffering gender dysphoria outgrow it on their own by late adolescence and that “transition” procedures fail to resolve gender-confused individuals’ heightened tendency to engage in self-harm and suicide – and even exacerbate it, including by reinforcing their confusion and neglecting the actual root causes of their mental strife.
Many oft-ignored detransitioners attest to the physical and mental harm of reinforcing gender confusion as well as to the bias and negligence of the medical establishment on the subject, many of whom take an activist approach to their profession and begin cases with a predetermined conclusion in favor of “transitioning.”
Last year, a massive, peer-reviewed study provided unequivocal evidence that those who undergo so-called “gender reassignment” surgery put themselves at a vastly increased risk of suicide – an astounding 12 times that of the general population.
The giant study, “involving 56 United States healthcare organizations and over 90 million patients,” analyzed data collected over a 20-year period, from February 2003 to February 2023, examining “suicide attempts, death, self-harm, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) within five years of the index event.”
The researchers compared the experiences of persons aged 18-60 who visited hospital emergency rooms and who had previously undergone “transition” surgery with those who visited emergency rooms without having undergone transgender surgery: A stunning 3.47 percent of those who had surgically “transitioned” were treated for suicide attempts, versus 0.29 percent for non-“transitioned” patients.
The authors of the study, like those of the one just published in the Oxford Journal of Sexual Medicine, sidestepped the obvious conclusion that attempts to surgically “transition” the gender-confused are both dangerous and futile.
Instead they concluded: “Gender-affirming [sic] surgery is significantly associated with elevated suicide attempt risks, underlining the necessity for comprehensive post-procedure psychiatric support.”
In 2016, The New Atlantis, A Journal of Technology and Society, produced a landmark report offering a summary and an up-to-date explanation of research on “sexual orientation and gender identity” from the biological, psychological, and social sciences, covering nearly 200 peer-reviewed studies.
“The hypothesis that gender identity is an innate, fixed property of human beings that is independent of biological sex — that a person might be ‘a man trapped in a woman’s body’ or ‘a woman trapped in a man’s body’ — is not supported by scientific evidence,” according to experts Lawrence S. Mayer, M.B., M.S., Ph.D, scholar-in-residence in the Department of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University, and Paul R. McHugh, M.D., professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
According to their report, the vast body of scientific evidence tells a different story from the one most have been told through mainstream media. “Sexual identity” or “sexual orientation” are so commonly used that they go unquestioned and are perceived to have been derived from biological or medical science, but they are not. These terms are merely expressions of desire, behavior, and identity, all of which are fluid and may change over time. Additionally, “gay,” “lesbian,” and “transgender” are not scientific terms. People who suffer from homosexual inclinations and/or gender confusion are not separate species of human beings.
The only thing that science actually tells us is that we are born either male or female.
One young man, Yarden Silveira, was so distraught after “sex change” surgery that he committed suicide in 2021.
Before taking his own life, Yarden wrote:
I wish I never listened to the medical and psychiatric community when they told me it was possible to change my sex. What a lie. Very dangerous and unethical. Sex reassignment [sic] surgery is a hit and miss type of surgery, but they don’t tell you that. They never do. And maybe if I didn’t have autism, maybe if my brain wasn’t so defective, I would have caught on before it was too late…
This is what I get for messing with nature… I just wanted friendship and love. I wanted life to be easier. I wanted to be a woman since I was 15. I wish I had the knowledge that I have today. I was a confused kid with no identity. I wish I could have done everything different, but it’s too late now. I’m royally screwed…
The Transgender Ideology and its lies, along with the pro-gay media, medical and psychiatric community, have killed me. The feminization of America will continue to produce outcomes like mine. It wasn’t my fault for failing. Everyone failed me, my death shouldn’t surprise anyone.
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