REGINA – In a unanimous decision, the Regina Qu’Appelle Health Region (RQHR) board has voted to close the pediatric ward at the Pasqua Hospital.
By June 2014 if the province approves the decision all children needing hospital care will be treated at the Regina General Hospital.
The RQHR report, voted on Wednesday evening, finds that overall fewer children are being admitted at both the Pasqua and Regina General.
It also finds that the Pasqua has been having difficulty attracting experienced pediatric nurses. The RQHR says nurses aren’t busy enough at the Pasqua to gain the necessary experience to provide specialty care.
“We need to give the nurses the benefit of these years of experience before we ask them to do the more specialized parts of pediatric nursing,” said Dr. Juliet Soper, RQHR Pediatrics Head. “And at the moment, we’re not giving them that opportunity because there’s simply not the patient numbers.”
Marilyn Fahlman’s youngest son was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma in 2009 when he was 15. She spent many years at the Pasqua pediatric unit with her son.
“They talked about statistically the higher rate of error in the past few years at the Pasqua. That wasn’t our experience,” said Fahlman. “We believed we received excellent quality of care here. People that really cared about us and got to know us on a personal level.”
In order to accommodate the change, the health region is planning on expanding the number of pediatric beds at the Regina General from 26 to 34. The renovations could take close to two years and come at cost a total of $2.2 million.
Another change is that some critically-ill children will be moved from Regina to Saskatoon to receive treatment.
RQHR estimates that 40 to 60 children would need to be transferred to Saskatoon each year. These are children, for example, on life support and with severe brain injuries.
“The children that really need that intensive care will be much better dealt with in Saskatoon,” said Lloyd Boutilier, RQHR board chair. “You can’t have specialists in both locations.”
RQHR says the Saskatchewan population is not sufficient to maintain two pediatric intensive care units.
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