REGINA — Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill is pledging changes are coming to ensure better notifications from Saskatchewan Health Authority about whether ER rooms are open or closed in the province.
The ministry has been on the hot seat in recent weeks after numerous incidents in which the SHA had issued notifications directing patients to rural ERs that were in fact closed due to their own service disruptions.
Those incidents involved ERs in Davidson, Herbert, and most recently Arcola. In the case of Davidson and Arcola, notifications had gone out redirecting patients from Outlook and Kipling, respectively, to those facilities when their own ERs were closed.
When asked Wednesday if there would be a resolution to these communications snafus, Cockrill said “absolutely we are.”
Cockrill said he had been working with the Saskatchewan Health Authority over the last several weeks, and vented his own frustrations with what had been happening.
"I've been frustrated, quite frankly… we need to make sure that the Saskatchewan Health Authority is providing accurate and trustworthy information to individuals around the province.”
Cockrill said he had the opportunity to speak to frontline health-care workers and to local municipal leaders about it.
“They want accurate information on behalf of their residents, whether they live in a small community or large community. In November, the Saskatchewan Health Authority is going to be introducing a new notification process for disruptions. Again, we're working closely with Saskatchewan Health Authority on that process over the last couple of weeks and we'll have more to say on that in November.”
Cockrill also pledged to address the actual service disruptions happening in rural areas.
“Let's take Herbert, for example, and we know that Herbert has had many challenges in the spring and earlier in the summer,” said Cockrill. “I've been working closely with the Saskatchewan Health Authority, as well as the Mayor in Herbert, him and I have communicated several times, and that's a great example where we were able to bring in our point-of-care testing system. Herbert, specifically, was having challenges around CLXTs, our combined lab and x-ray techs. But bringing in that point-of-care testing enables those folks working in the facility, registered nurses and doctors, to do some of that work more immediately without necessarily a CLXT on the ground, ensuring that that emergency room can be open to people and available to local residents.”
Cockrill also spoke about “really good discussions” with staff and municipal leaders in his visits to other smaller community emergency rooms this summer, specifically Lanigan and Watrous which have also seen challenges over the last several months. The minister said he thought there was some really good work being done around point-of-care testing and around the virtual physician program, to “ensure that those emergency rooms are open as much as possible, so people can receive care as close to home.”
NDP health critics were incredulous about what they had heard from Cockrill.
“I understand that the minister of health has just made a statement that closures in our rural communities is on the up and up, things are going well, things are getting better,” said Health Critic Meara Conway to reporters
“We know that these issues are getting worse. We need only consult with frontline communities to know this. What's more, the minister of health promised data on this not six months ago, said he would show his homework, but we haven't seen anything. So I challenge the minister of health to put forward that information and be transparent.”
Conway also pointed to the statement by Cockrill that “he's feeling very frustrated with communication with the SHA."
"The SHA, that is a body that answers to him and that he has filled its board, its directive body, with political insiders. It's just outrageous. The buck stops with this minister of health."
Conway claimed the real reason hospital closure notifications had stopped was because of political pressure from the government.
“We know that many of these closures in rural communities used to be publicized. It wasn't until the Sask Party put in place that they didn’t want these emergency room closures public, because it makes them look bad, that this practice stopped because of political direction.”
As for what the NDP proposes to do about the notifications issue, Rural and Remote Health Minister Jared Clarke reaffirmed his party will introduce legislation this fall “to have the SHA release or publicly notify the communities if their hospital is closing.”
“We have many other examples of apps and websites that can do this currently. I think about the SaskPower and electricity outage app. There could be a similar website or app that could do something like that, but we plan on introducing legislation to address this issue in the coming weeks.”
Clarke added that “this is an issue that could be solved today.”
“There could be transparency for Saskatchewan people who are driving up to their community local hospital only to find a piece of paper on the door telling them that care isn't there. So this is a solution that could be implemented today to allow community members and Saskatchewan people to get that access to that information immediately.”
