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Saskatchewan’s NDP is raising concerns after the party’s health critic, Keith Jorgenson, said he wasn’t able to get urgent bloodwork done over the May long weekend.
Jorgenson said he tried to have lab tests done at a LifeLabs location in Saskatoon, but was met with a sign on the door stating all locations were closed at the direction of the Saskatchewan Health Authority.
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He said he called the provincial 811 health line to figure out where blood work could be done, but said he was told that the 811 operator was not informed of the closure and disruption. Jorgenson said he was then directed to a Saskatoon emergency room.
“I saw the ER absolutely, completely overwhelmed with patients seeking both care and lab testing,” Jorgenson told reporters on Tuesday.
“What disturbs me is that this disruption was planned, and the SHA chose to tell absolutely no one what they were about to do.”
Jorgenson said the lab disruption shows “a chaotic style of management of the health-care system.”
He said the NDP has proposed legislation that would force the province to notify people of closures, especially in rural areas.
Last month, the Saskatchewan government announced that emergency service disruptions will be updated online twice a day, at 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Previously, updates were only provided daily at 4 p.m.
Jorgenson said doubling the frequency of updates is “not enough.”
According to the Saskatchewan Health Authority, a lab information system upgrade was being done in Saskatoon on Saturday as part of a provincial initiative. The upgrade was done to ensure the labs are all using same version of the system and support platform.
“We understand that Lifelabs closed three of their Saskatoon collection sites on Saturday, May 16 to accommodate the system upgrade. Lifelabs has indicated that they proactively posted notice of these closures to minimize impact to patients.” the health authority said in a statement.
“We acknowledge that this represented an inconvenience to patients seeking non-emergent testing at these facilities. However, this had no impact on test collection and reporting for patients in emergency and acute settings.”
According to the province, LifeLabs operates community lab collections on behalf of the health authority.
