Carol Baldwin
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Wakaw Recorder
Another temporary disruption to emergency services at Rosthern Hospital occurred this past weekend for 15 hours overnight from August 3-4.
An emergency services disruption at the Rosthern Hospital made the news in January when Carla Beck, leader of the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party, brought it up while talking about the recurring disruptions to emergency services in Oxbow. Oxbow residents had experienced close to 100 hours of service disruptions in the first two months of 2023.
Emergency services delivery in Rosthern has been regularly disrupted since October 2023, with 431.5 hours of closure recorded up to August 1, 2024. That number continues to climb with the disruption this past weekend where the problem appears to lie in the inability to have a physician available for those hours.
According to saskdocs.ca, a posting for Family Physicians in Rosthern, created in August 2022 and having a closing date of December 2024, identifies that the SHA needed four physicians for the Rosthern hospital. Since the posting was uploaded new doctors have arrived, but more doctors have left.
Seven family physicians are listed on the Rosthern Medical Clinic website as practicing in Rosthern out of the Sask Valley Health Care Centre. These physicians, along with physicians from Wakaw, fill staffing rotations in the emergency department at Rosthern Hospital.
In a statement, the SHA said they will work with the Government of Saskatchewan and system partners to stabilize healthcare services at facilities where temporary service disruptions occur.
“Physicians from Rosthern and nearby communities work together to deliver care when coverage gaps occur,” reads the statement. “An additional physician was recently recruited and started practicing in the community at the end of July.
“The SHA remains committed to restoring, maintaining and strengthening the important healthcare services people rely on in Rosthern. Some of that work includes recruiting nurses, physicians and many other healthcare providers through The Government of Saskatchewan’s Health Human Resources Action Plan. The plan is an aggressive healthcare initiative [which] aims to build a stronger, more robust healthcare workforce over the next several years.”
The Rosthern Hospital was originally built in 1950, with additions added to the facility in 1960 and 1970, and by the time a new hospital is built, it will be well over 75 years old. Although there have been several additions to the original hospital over the years, the building is aging, and two separate consultations, completed by different engineering firms, concluded the building does not adequately serve its purpose any longer.
As a hospital that regularly serves as a residency placement for emerging doctors and a hospital that serves the needs of an ever-growing population both in the town itself and the surrounding communities, as well as being an “anchor” between Saskatoon and Prince Albert, it needs to be able to reduce the pressure on the city hospitals which means up-to-date emergency room and other equipment. The frequent disruptions to emergency services are not a result of out-of-date equipment.
The new Rosthern Hospital project has received the green light with a budget allocation in 2023. The allocation heralded the initiation of planning for the new hospital. The budget released on Wednesday, March 22, 2023, committed $2.6 million in new funding to initiate work on key infrastructure priorities which included developing plans for the Rosthern Hospital, as well as the Battlefords District Care Centre, and St. Anthony’s Hospital in Esterhazy. When the project gets to the shovel-in-the-ground stage and the construction moves forward, the government will finance 80 percent while the remaining 20 percent will come from the monies raised by the Sask Valley Hospital Foundation.
Closing a local emergency room can be a problem that compounds itself and creates a much bigger problem than simply access to those services. When paramedics are on a call and have to travel further distances, going past the closest emergency department because it is closed, can delay response to another call. When an ambulance and crew have to drive further than they usually would, to access emergency services, that takes those staff members ‘out of the loop’, out of the rotation, for longer than necessary. Additionally, when those calls are rerouted to a different facility with a busier emergency department, the downtime can increase exponentially as crews wait to transfer care of their patient to emergency staff. For small EMS businesses, a busy night with limited crew, equipment, and vehicles, an emergency services interruption could mean no one being available to answer a call.
Overcrowded emergency rooms leave paramedics unable to discharge patients until a bed becomes available, however long that takes, whether that takes eight hours or, as in some extreme cases documented in EMS logs, up to 24 hours. A shortage of family physicians leaves many in the province without a medical professional to turn to which results in more people presenting at Emergency Rooms and needing ambulance services because their chronic and acute medical conditions are not being managed or prevented.
Individuals can lessen the pressure on Emergency rooms by seeking care at walk-in clinics or going to urgent care centres. While emergency room medical professionals can treat any condition, urgent care medical professionals can address less severe, acute problems. People usually go to urgent care centers for minor injuries or when they cannot get in to see their primary care doctor for something that is not an emergency but requires prompt medical attention, usually within 24 to 48 hours. Examples of conditions that call for Urgent care, but not Emergency Care include sprains and strains; cuts, wounds or skin conditions; high fever; nausea, diarrhea and constipation; a new or worsening pain.
Emergency care is required when a medical or psychiatric condition requires immediate medical attention to prevent serious jeopardy to one’s health. Examples include chest pain or pressure; severe stomach pain that comes on suddenly; decrease in or loss of consciousness; severe shortness of breath; severe headache that comes on suddenly or is accompanied by nausea; sudden numbness, tingling, weakness, or loss of movement in your face, arm, or leg, especially on only one side of your body. If in doubt individuals can call Healthline toll-free 24 hours/day at 811 with questions about current health situations.
Urgent Care/Minor Emergency Centres are available in Saskatoon at:
- Bridge City Mediclinic: 101 – 3333 8 St East;
- Lakeside Medical Clinic: 215 Joseph Okemasis Drive;
- Erindale Health Centre: 2 – 50 Kenderdine Rd;
- Westgate Medical and Minor Emergency Clinic: #18-2410-22nd St. W;
- Minor Emergency Clinic: 3110 Laurier Dr.
In Prince Albert at South Hill Minor Emergency Clinic: 2685 2nd Ave W.
In Wakaw at the Wakaw Primary Health and Collaborative Emergency Centre (CEC) on 301 1st Street N.
Notifications of temporary disruptions to emergency services at Rosthern Hospital are shared on the Town of Rosthern’s Facebook page. Residents in Rosthern can access emergency services during these disruptions at Royal University and St. Paul’s Hospitals in Saskatoon, as well as Victoria Hospital in Prince Albert.
