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According to data obtained by the Saskatchewan NDP, people in ERs across the province have been waiting hours and hours to be seen this week, and capacity issues have hiked up the safety risk.
“It’s clear that health care in Saskatchewan is worse than it’s ever been. I can’t imagine the pain, agony and frustration of the people waiting in these waiting rooms, I can’t imagine the distress of front line health-care workers,” said Meara Conway, the NDP’s health critic, on Wednesday morning.
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She released Sask. Health Authority (SHA) data that was leaked to the NDP of the capacity numbers for Sunday, Monday and Tuesday this week from all of the hospitals in Saskatchewan.
On Sunday, both Regina’s hospital ERs were near or more than 100 per cent capacity with a high or very high safety risk. The Riverside Health Complex in Turtleford, Victoria Hospital in P.A. and Dr. F.H. Wigmore Regional Hospital in Moose Jaw were all at a very high or high safety risk.
On Monday, Royal University Hospital and St. Paul’s Hospital in Saskatoon, Regina General Hospital, Riverside Health Complex in Turtleford, Victoria Hospital in P.A., Indian Head Union Hospital, and the Dr. F.H. Wigmore Regional Hospital in Moose Jaw were at a high or very high safety risk.
And Tuesday, the numbers showed Royal University and St. Paul’s Hospitals in Saskatoon, Regina General Hospital, the health complex in Turtleford, Victoria Hospital in P.A, the hospital in Indian Head, and the Dr. F.H. Wigmore Hospital in Moose Jaw all still at a high or very high safety risk.
All these hospitals listed wait times in the dozens of hours, with the longest wait time listed at the Regina General Hospital on Tuesday at 91 hours. However, a statement from Derek Miller, COO of the SHA, said those numbers measure the time from patient registration to discharge, not the wait time to be assessed by a doctor.
Miller’s statement didn’t give a reason why hospitals are seeing capacity issues, but did say hospitals across the province respond to ebbs and flows.
“The SHA monitors emergency department and acute care capacity across all hospital sites in the province on a continuous, real-time basis to support system-wide decision making, including transport decisions for patients who require a higher level of care or transfer to home hospital,” read Miller’s statement.
“This monitoring includes overall hospital occupancy, patients identified for admission and those being monitored in emergency departments. A scoring system is used to assess levels of risk and to guide appropriate actions at different thresholds.”
NDP Health critic Meara Conway blamed the ER capacity problems on the Sask. Party government, saying a number of failings have led to the overcapacity problems. (Lisa Schick/980 CJME)
Conway said the provincial government has touted the urgent care centre in Regina as a fix to hospital ER problems, but she pointed out that the Regina General ER was among the worst for capacity issues over these three days.
According to the health critic, there are a great number of ways the Sask. Party Government has failed the province and led to what she described as this “crisis”.
She gave the lack of home care and affordable senior care, and issues around adequate social assistance as examples.
Conway said there were things that could be done immediately to alleviate the pressure.
“Even this morning when I spoke to front line health-care providers at the Regina General, they’re like ‘here are three things we need to do immediately,’ but they’re not being done,” she said.
She called on the government to put together a plan to get the ERs out of this situation over the Christmas holidays.
When asked whether the capacity problems might be the fault of influenza and a surge of serious cases that’s been seen across the province, Conway said hospitals know there are surges every year at this time but it appears the SHA and government haven’t planned to deal with it.
“It’s incumbent upon this government to be prepared for that, and they’re just simply not,” said Conway.
The Health Minister’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment before publication time.
