The Saskatchewan Health Authority has announced a temporary disruption to emergency and acute care services at the Arcola Health Centre, which started on Friday evening and will continue until 8 a.m. on Jan. 30.
Lab/x-ray services will not be affected by this disruption. There will also still be physician coverage in Arcola, but physician and nurse services are being diverted to Weyburn.
Roberta Wiwcharuk, the executive director of acute care for the Saskatchewan Health Authority, said the disruption is due to the increased number of cases in the Weyburn area.
鈥淲e will have the staff and physicians providing support to the Weyburn General Hospital that is having some increased activity,鈥� said Wiwcharuk.
There has not been increased COVID-19 case count at other health facilities, such as St. Joseph鈥檚 Hospital in Estevan, the Gallaway Health Centre in Oxbow and the Redvers Health Centre.
This is not the first time that services in Arcola have been affected by COVID, either. During the spring, the health centre was one of 12 reduced to alternate levels of care, with emergency and acute care services suspended. They were restored about a month later, and remained in tact until last week.
Wiwcharuk said the community was notified a few weeks ago that the SHA might reduce services temporarily in Arcola. The community was informed last week the disruption would go ahead.
Wiwcharuk said COVID cases in the Weyburn area would need to drop considerably to end the disruption early. There鈥檚 also a chance the reduction in services could extend beyond Jan. 30.
鈥淲e certainly are monitoring the activity day to day and week to week. We did hope that by January 30 we鈥檇 be able to resume the services, but we鈥檒l just have to monitor the situation. Hopefully we can resume, but there is a possibility we would need to extend.鈥�
In the event of an emergency, those who would normally access the emergency room or acute care services in Arcola are asked to ca鈥媗l 911 or visit the emergen鈥媍y department in Estevan, Redvers, Kipling or Weyburn.
Non-urgent health related questions can be directed to the provincial HealthLine by calling 811.
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