The provincial government announced yesterday that it will invest $224.8 million through Budget 2024 to train more physicians in rural areas.

Because of the lack of doctors in rural areas, rural Albertans must travel long distances to seek medical care, the province said in a news release.

The government will work with post-secondary institutions to train more doctors in rural areas. If students study in rural areas, they are more likely to stay there after they graduate, the release said.

Post-secondary institutions collaborating in the project include the University of Alberta, the University of Calgary, the University of Lethbridge, and Northwestern Polytechnic. The schools will help develop new Rural Medicine Education Program Training Centres in Lethbridge and Grande Prairie.

Universities in Calgary and Lethbridge will collaborate to develop a training centre in Lethbridge, while the University of Alberta will partner with Northwestern Polytechnic to develop the training centre in Grande Prairie.

Adriana LaGrande, Minister of Health, said the regional training centres will attract and retain physicians in rural communities. She said the training centres will strengthen the local primary health care systems and take pressure off local emergency departments.

The training centres will offer hands-on learning experiences in rural communities and contribute more than 100 practicing physicians each year.

Once they are running, the training centres will provide primary care in Lethbridge and Grande Prairie, and each general practitioner in the teaching clinic will be able to care for about 1,200 patients.

Clinics will operate after regular hours to take the strain off rural emergency departments and add more primary-care capacity, the province added.

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In a statement, Cargill said it would resume operations after a 14-day temporary shutdown, with one shift a day beginning on May 4.

The company announced April 20 it would temporarily idle the plant, which represents about 36 per cent of Canada’s total beef processing capacity.

The company said all healthy employees from its slaughter department who have not been in contact with someone infected with COVID-19 for 14 days are asked to report to work. Employees should also practice social distancing in the facility.

As of Tuesday, 759 cases of COVID-19 had been found in workers from the Cargill plant, according to Alberta Health Services data, with 1,167 total cases linked to the plant’s outbreak. One worker has died.

Health officials have said carpooling by workers to the plant, about 35 km south of Calgary, was a contributing factor. On Wednesday, Cargill said buses with protective barriers between the seats will be provided as part of its new safety measures.

Additional barriers have also been installed in bathrooms and lockers have been reassigned to provide workers with more space.

— Reporting for Reuters by Kelsey Johnson; additional reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg.

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Three cases of COVID-19 were confirmed Wednesday at the JBS beef packing plant in Brooks, said Tom Hesse, Local 401 president with United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Canada.

JBS Canada spokesman Cameron Bruett confirmed some employees have tested positive for the virus, but said the Brooks plant is staying open.

“We are providing support to those team members and their families, and we hope they all make a full and speedy recovery. Out of respect for the families, we are not releasing further information,” he wrote in an emailed statement.

“The food supply is a critical infrastructure industry and we have a special responsibility to maintain operations on behalf of the country. We take this responsibility seriously.”

On Easter weekend, it was reported that 38 cases of COVID-19 were diagnosed at the Cargill plant in High River, and one case was detected at Harmony Beef back in March.

The number of cases at Cargill prompted Alberta Health Services to open a dedicated testing centre at that plant this week, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health said Wednesday.

“Local public health has worked with these locations to ensure close contacts are isolated and prevent transmission,” Dr. Deena Hinshaw said. “There is no risk to the public from food produced in these plants.”

Hesse said he has written a letter to Cargill urging the company to shut down its High River plant.

“When you have that measure of diagnoses, you shut the plant down, just for two weeks,” Hesse said Tuesday. “It’s a necessary act to save lives and keep the plant functioning. If food inspectors think it’s unsafe, they won’t come to work, and they (Cargill) will have to shut the plant down. If COVID gets worse they will have to shut the plant down.”

‘Business resumption protocol’

Jon Nash, the North America lead for Cargill’s protein division, told Glacier FarmMedia on Monday in an emailed statement that the second shift at the High River plant would be temporarily idled starting that day.

The facility has also put additional safety measures such as temperature testing and distancing practices “where possible,” he said.

The plant is working with Alberta Health Services, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and safety officials, and will consider a shutdown if necessary, Nash told other media this week.

The Alberta and federal governments said Thursday they’ve now agreed on an “intergovernmental business resumption protocol” when responding to confirmed COVID-19 cases in provincially and federally licensed food processing facilities, which would allow plants to continue operating.

Whereas the COVID-19 case last month at Harmony Beef had led to a shutdown at that plant, the principles of the new protocol were applied when the Cargill plant booked its first confirmed case of COVID-19 on April 6, the province said Thursday in a release.

“We are proud of the fact that this protocol has already proven effective in advance of it being formally signed by all parties,” the province said.

The new protocol “complements the guidance that the CFIA has provided to federally registered meat establishments to implement measures to reduce the risk of COVID-19 exposure for inspectors and workers,” federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said in the same release.

Cargill did not respond to interview requests from Alberta Farmer.

— Alexis Kienlen reports for Alberta Farmer from Edmonton. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

Update, April 17: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated CCA executive vice-president Dennis Laycraft had toured the Cargill plant since the outbreak occurred.

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Alberta Health Services will share the requirements vendors need to meet to sell food products at these farmers’ markets. Participants will also learn the difference between Alberta-approved farmers’ markets and other public markets, as well as what can and can not be sold.

For more information contact Eileen Kotowich, eileen.kotowich@gov.ab.ca or 780-853-8223.

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If you get water from a private well, you’re responsible for managing and maintaining the well and ensuring the water supply is tested regularly and is safe to drink.

“Even though testing is free of charge for residential users through Alberta Health Services, we’re finding that some people aren’t testing their water,” said Debra Mooney, an environmental health consultant with Alberta Health and an advocate for the Working Well Program.

• More on the Alberta Farmer: Is your well water safe to drink?

“People need to know what’s in their water. Some well water has high nitrate levels which can be harmful to small infants when mixed in their formula. Other harmful substances can also make their way into wells and since water quality can change over the lifetime of a well, regular testing is the only way to be certain that well water is safe for human consumption.”

Testing well water on a regular basis also provides a baseline of the water quality, which can be very important to a well owner if things go wrong.

“Routine testing can pick up changes in water quality early on and help a well owner realize that certain maintenance procedures need to be done to preserve water quality and increase the lifetime of a well,” said Jamie Wuite, executive director of Alberta Agriculture and Forestry’s irrigation and farm water division.

“A baseline is also important information to have when you suspect your water quality has been negatively affected by another party. If you never tested your water quality, it’s hard to prove that it has been negatively affected.”

Land use changes or structural degradation of an aging well can also change or affect water quality.

For more information, including a fact sheet on taking water samples, visit the Working Well website.

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