SASKATOON, Sask. — News of the latest round of health-care facility disruptions over the weekend drew an outraged reaction from the NDP opposition on Monday.
“You know, I'm frustrated, I'm angry, and frankly I'm a little bit scared that… Scott Moe and Jeremy Cockrill’s inability to run our health-care system properly and come clean about the state of our health-care system is going to cost another person in Saskatchewan their life,” NDP associate health critic Keith Jorgenson told reporters in Saskatoon.
Jorgenson pointed to news from the weekend of another 12 rural emergency facilities that were closed. He said, in addition, there were other rural facilities in the province that were open but with “no doctor, no lab services, or no X-ray services.”
“This is dangerous and it's irresponsible. You know, we need the government to provide real-time information about these closures to folks in rural Saskatchewan, and come up with a plan to fix health care in urban Saskatchewan, but in rural Saskatchewan. It's dangerous to have this many hospital ERs closed. Almost a third of ERs in rural Saskatchewan are closed on weekends.”
The closures reported this past weekend included communities such as Melville, Wolseley, Kamsack, Preeceville and Wilkie, among others.
The Saskatchewan NDP has repeatedly called for more updates on service disruptions to happen in real time. Its rural and remote health critic, Jared Clarke, had brought forward private member’s legislation in the last session to require real-time notifications of hospital ER closures to that effect, but his bill was defeated at third reading.
There have been changes brought in for more regular updates. This past spring, the Saskatchewan Health Authority switched its reporting of hospital closures and disruptions to twice daily, at 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.
Jorgenson once again raised concerns that the current notification system in place is not enough, especially for rural residents who travel long distances.
“So, you know, often again, folks who live in rural Saskatchewan, when there's an emergency, people often live between two hospitals,” said Jorgenson. “You have to decide which hospital to go to. So, the current system of notification provides a snapshot of people twice a day when what hospitals are closed at that exact time. But it doesn't capture what hospitals were closed before that time. So, you could easily show up at a hospital one minute before that notification time and the hospital would be closed.”
The government has pointed to its efforts to recruit more health-care workers to work in rural Saskatchewan as a way to ultimately address the service disruption situation.
But Jorgenson voiced skepticism about those efforts on Monday, calling it a “strange solution that they're seeking.”
Jorgenson particularly pointed to a “massive shortage of nurses in rural Saskatchewan,” but said the province was looking to have nurses drive farther to rural areas to work.
“So the idea that you're going to force the nurses to drive further to work isn't going to enable more nurses and isn't going to fix the problem at all,” said Jorgenson.
“If anything, I think there's a danger of jobs less desirable by potentially forcing someone to drive 50, 100 kilometres on almost no notice away from their home. They might just decide they don't want that job anymore. So I think the real solution here is to settle these collective agreements and work collaboratively with the various unions to try to come up with solutions, including potential labour movement. But that's by working with people, not trying to force them.”
In a statement to SaskToday, the Saskatchewan Health Authority said it “acknowledge[s] that multiple SHA facilities experienced temporary service disruptions over the weekend. These disruptions were due to a variety of reasons, such as staffing absence or vacancy. The majority of the disruptions over the weekend have since been resolved.”
The SHA said it “makes every effort to maintain local emergency services by securing staff and physician coverage wherever possible.” It pointed to ongoing initiatives such as the Virtual Physician Program, Point-of-Care Testing and broader health-care human resources strategies aimed at stabilizing and strengthening emergency care capacity across the province.
The SHA also again pointed to its updates on emergency services being provided as being posted twice daily at 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., seven days a week. It also states that emergency service disruptions, regardless of length, are posted publicly on the SHA service disruption web page.
