OBGYN services at Wetaskiwin Hospital and Care Centre in Wetaskiwin, Alberta, are affected by a temporary service disruption listed on Alberta Health Services’ facilities tracker. Residents who require obstetric or gynecological care may need to seek care in other communities while the unit is offline.
According to Alberta Health Services, the province maintains a publicly available tracker showing service disruptions because of staffing shortages. The page says temporary reductions are a last resort and that AHS makes every effort to secure staff and physician coverage before reducing beds or care spaces. As of May 22, 2026 the disruptions map listed 19 communities with temporary service reductions, including Wetaskiwin, Rimbey, Sundre, Three Hills, Slave Lake, Westlock, Boyle, Grimshaw, Hardisty, Consort, and others.
The Alberta Medical Association has warned the shortage of obstetrician-gynecologists in both rural and urban areas could lead to more premature births and ongoing health problems for babies. Dr. Cameron Sklar, head of obstetrics and gynecology at the association, said clinicians are seeing patients late in the third trimester who have missed prenatal genetic screening milestones and who carry major medical conditions such as cystic fibrosis and Type 1 diabetes. “The outcomes in these pregnancies can be substantially worsened,” Sklar said. Dr. Shelley Duggan, then-president of the association, said recruiting and keeping physicians in rural Alberta is getting harder because “they’re burning out from next to no work-life balance.” In January 2025, Sklar said Alberta Health Services had told acute care physicians to expect reductions or removal of on-call payments by April 2025, affecting several groups of obstetricians and gynecologists.
Service reductions in other Alberta communities have already forced families to travel for care. Rimbey and Sundre were reported to have been without obstetrics for more than a year as of mid-2023. Hardisty Health Centre’s emergency department has been operating reduced hours since January 2026, open 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Thursday, with nursing staff available 24/7 for assessments and referrals; that emergency department was fully closed between June 2021 and September 2023. The AHS disruptions tracker is updated Tuesdays and Fridays and lists the current temporary changes affecting rural sites.
