REGINA – The war of words was back on at the Legislature this week as the Opposition accused the government of holding up passage of its emergency room closure notifications bill.
Last week, The Provincial Health Authority (ER Closure right-to-know) Amendment Act cleared second reading by a 47-0 vote, sending the bill to the committee stage. But on Monday the proponent of the bill, Rural and Remote Health critic Jared Clarke, attempted to move to immediately proceed to committee on the bill.
That leave required unanimous consent under the rules and that was not granted by the Sask Party majority, despite the government's unanimous vote in support of the Opposition's bill last week.
Afterwards, Clarke said he was “really disappointed with the government.” He vowed to continue to push for the bill to be passed, which called for the SHA to publish real-time reporting of emergency room closures.
“We will continue to ask day in and day out for this bill to be passed, because people deserve to know this information,” said Clarke.
As for the seeming change in tone from the government on Monday towards Clarke’s bill after voting for it the previous week, Clarke thought there was a real division within the government. He also thought there had been a real division in tone seen the previous week as well.
“When I asked the Minister if he was going to pass the bill though second reading, his answer indicated he was not interested in that,” said Clarke. “And then a few moments later when the vote came, the government voted in favour. So we’ve seen kind of two different stories coming out of this government – one that they think they’re doing enough, and then the other one where they think this is a good idea.”
On Tuesday, the NDP resumed their push to pass Clarke’s bill, with Clarke again attempting to bring it to the floor of the Assembly immediately and the Sask Party majority again saying no.
During Question Period, Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill said his caucus "agrees in principle" with much of what was in Clarke’s bill. But he also said what was in the bill is “already being operationalized by the Saskatchewan Health Authority.”
“Unfortunately, this is why it’s hard to take the members opposite seriously at times,“ said Cockrill. “To operationalize these policies is not just writing a paragraph in a bill… there are multiple things that need to happen. Again, that’s why I indicated yesterday we will continue to engage in discussions with the Saskatchewan Health Authority on how we continue to provide that information to people.”
“Updating a website at 4 pm is not giving real time information about when emergency rooms are open or closed,” shot back Clarke, who accused the government of playing political games.
The NDP also went on the attack Tuesday over what was happening at a number of health care facilities in the province.
In a news release they cited SHA data of 102 per cent capacity the previous day for Moose Jaw’s Dr. F.H. Wigmore Regional Hospital. They also pointed to obstetric and gynecological services being closed there for three consecutive days in July 2022, basic radiology and laboratory services being closed for 216 days between Nov. 2020 and June 2021, and a total of 317 days of different service closures since 2019.
The NDP also raised concerns that notifications did not go out the previous night regarding the health care facility in Turtleford. In Question Period, Associate Health critic Keith Jorgenson said the notification website had “missed another closure.”
An outraged Cockrill responded by ripping Jorgenson for having posting on social media that “people are going to die tonight.”
“That isn’t helpful, that doesn’t make health care better and it’s irresponsible for patients in this province,” he said.
Outside following Question Period, Cockrill continued to lay into Jorgenson, calling his social media remarks “so over the top irresponsible.”
“Do you know how hard it is to recruit a physician into Turtleford when you have an MLA posting on social media that people are going to die in that community?” said Cockrill.
The health minister added that he was for “positive constructive debate about health care in this province,” adding the remarks were “not helpful at all in terms of how we improve services available in Turtleford or other communities around the province.”
