Inside of the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday, the provincial opposition brought forward an example of how Saskatchewan’s cancelled health care services has affected one family in the province.
The family of 11 year old Helen was present to ask questions of when the services would confirm the nature of an unknown illness.
Helen’s father, Graham Dickson says the shutdown of services has affected his child immensely. “We know that early intervention is key and every day that goes by we’re missing the boat we’re missing the opportunity to get her to a place where she needs to be, whether its proper vision, to play sports , to even just walk , I worry every how this delay is going to impact her, it’s hard, it’s very hard.”
Dickson noted they were seeing some improvements with Helen while receiving physical therapy before the interruption. “Since that stop we’ve been at a standstill , we would go regularly , they would give us new exercises, instructions to do and we would see marginal improvements and that’s slowed. It’s not that we’re seeing anything new , it’s that we’re not seeing anything.”
The Saskatchewan government was forced to redeploy its health care resources to help out with the overcrowded ICU’s during the fourth wave of the pandemic. Health Minister Paul Merriman said it was a tough decision to make. “I apologize that these decisions are impacting families, I understand that, they’re not easy decisions and I prefer not having to make them but unfortunately I saw a health care system that was overwhelmed mostly by the unvaccinated. ”
The province said non surgical healthcare services would resume over the next few weeks. 50% of workers who were redeployed ,would return to their normal duties next week with the goal of 90% of redeployed workers returning to their original position by the end of the month.
