REGINA - Provincial officials are reacting to news this week of more capacity issues at St. Paul’s Hospital in Saskatoon.
Earlier this week Saskatchewan Union of Nurses posted on social media about conditions at the hospital, stating there were 41 admitted patients with no bed, use multiple ambulatory care beds and hallway beds, as well as short staff. Long wait times of upwards of 140 hours were being reported as well.
Opposition health critic Vicki Mowat raised the issue at her constituency office in Saskatoon this week, saying healthcare workers “are scared that somebody’s going to die in the waiting room before they get care. That is simply unacceptable.”
When asked about the situation during a media event in Regina, Premier Scott Moe acknowledged the pressures seen in Saskatoon. But he believed a new Urgent Care Centre coming to Saskatoon, in partnership with Ahtahkakoop Cree Developments, will alleviate those in the future.
“What we’re seeing here in Regina you’re going to see emulated in Saskatoon as soon as we are able get the infrastructure up and operational,” said Moe.
He pointed to the new Urgent Care Centre in Regina being up and running, with 6,000 patients utilizing that facility during the first two months of operation.
He said that with patients using the Regina Urgent Care Centre as opposed to the ERs at Regina General or Pasqua Hospital, “we are starting to see some stabilization in our emergency rooms in our capital city. And we look to have a very same stabilization in the community of Saskatoon as soon as we are able to get that infrastructure up and running. We were hoping to have it up and running by now, but we had challenges with the land location trying to get it in the right location so that we be as accessible as possible. As you know, we had that land location announcement a while ago and I believe construction is under way on that facility, not too far from St. Paul’s Hospital where we do have an increase in some of the folks who are using that facility.”
Saskatchewan Health Authority CEO Andrew Will also acknowledged the pressures seen this week at St. Paul’s Hospital, saying there was a “peak surge” seen in patients coming into the hospital this week.
“I just want to acknowledge the impact on patients, on families, on our staff when we are at times overcapacity at any of our hospitals,” Will said. “Certainly we do see fluctuation over time, and in the past seven days we’ve seen a 12 per cent increase in those coming to the emergency room. So we know we’re in a peak time.”
In response to capacity pressures seen at St. Paul’s last fall, the SHA had launched the Saskatoon Capacity Pressure Action Plan which resulted in some increased staffing levels and the opening of additional beds, including more convalescent and long-term care beds.
Will said that since launching the Saskatoon Capacity Pressure Action Plan, “we’ve seen a 42 per cent reduction for those that are waiting for placement outside of our hospital which helps our placement situation. We have also seen a 25 per cent reduction in the number of patients waiting to be admitted into inpatient beds, so we have seen some improvement.”
As for for this latest peak, “I want to assure people that are leaders are on-site at all levels of leadership working to ensure that we have good flow through the hospitals and to get back to normal operations as soon as we possibly can.”
On what was driving the surge, Will did say they were heading into respiratory illness season, although he was not certain that was the cause. He also said there was a need for more emergency surgeries than normal.
“So again a fluctuation that we do see from time to time, and that also compounds the pressure in terms of the volumes of patients that we’re serving in the hospitals.”
Health Minister Everett Hindley also spoke of the situation at St. Paul’s and noted the fluctuations that happen.
Hindlet said he had the opportunity to visit St. Paul’s in November of last year when it was very busy. But he had also been there during the spring and summer “when it hasn’t been as busy.”
“And we see those ebbs and flows in hospitals all the time. Sometimes they can be difficult to predict, sometimes, as we’ll see for example, in the fall it’s typically respiratory illness season, so you’ll tend to see more of those types of patients coming through the doors.”
Hindley also pointed again to the Capacity Pressure Action Plan and efforts towards alternative levels of care such as personal care homes. But he acknowledged the pressures seen in hospitals from time to time.
