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Saskatoon’s City Hospital has 40 new acute care beds, making the line to leave the emergency room a little shorter.
Often, patients coming to the hospital start off in the emergency department, where Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) CEO Andrew Will said they’re initially assessed and treated. If a doctor determines the patient needs to be admitted, they’ll move into an acute care bed.
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But, when none of these beds are available that person has to, “stay in the emergency department until one opens, contributing to pressures and longer waits,” according to Will.
The 40 new beds, Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill said on Friday, will help with patient flow.
The newness of these beds has been a point of contention though. Last month, Saskatchewan Union of Nurses (SUN) President Bryce Boynton said, “these aren’t new beds. They’re beds that are being shuffled around and re-labeled from other units to be sold as new.”
While the beds might not all be new to City Hospital, they are new to acute care.
Certain outpatient and continuing programs at the hospital have been moved out to community care locations around Saskatoon, with Cockrill saying that Market Mall on Preston Avenue South is planned to be a “major destination for many of these units.”
Some of the units that moved out of City Hospital to make room were “the former 30 bed Transitional Care Unit and 30 bed Convalescent Care Unit,” Will said.
By moving patients out of the hospital and into continuing care in the community, it freed up beds for acute care.
Work is also underway to relocate the hospital’s Geriatric Evaluation and Management Program, which Will said should make room for another 69 acute care beds.
Speaking about the 40 new beds, Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill said on Nov. 7, 2025 they, “will allow us to flow patients better through this facility, and really through all our facilities in Saskatoon.” (Marija Robinson/650 CKOM)
More acute care beds coming in 2026
The 40 beds are part of the provincial government’s larger goal to add 109 new acute care beds to City Hospital by the end of 2026.
This addresses some intentions of the Saskatoon Pressure Action Plan, which launched in 2023, and in total Will said these 109 beds will increase the hospital’s capacity by 14 per cent.
The 40 beds currently added are for general medicine patients. There will be another 20 of those, as well as 22 for acute rehabilitation, 12 for acquired brain injury, and 15 for high acuity patients, according to Will.
While 140 new full time equivalent healthcare positions have been created to support the 40-bed expansion, Cockrill said that will need to increase to roughly 500 when all 109 beds are operational.
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