Emergency services are set to resume in the Radville Marian Health Centre after it was converted into a temporary community hospital to help deal with a potential surge in COVID-19 cases in Saskatchewan.
Radville Marian Health Centre was one of 12 community hospitals put in place by the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA).
The centre’s emergency services will be back as of July 27.
“It’s just huge. We call Radville (Marian Health Centre) a hub for all of our towns and villages to the south, down to the U.S. border and over to the east towards Estevan,” Radville Mayor Rene Bourassa said.
“They all use this hospital. We all built this hospital together and consider ourselves a unit.”
People in Radville and surrounding area had to travel to Weyburn for emergency services, something Bourassa said was less than ideal.
“If we got an emergency down in Minton, by the time you get up to Radville with the ambulance and then having to go over to Weyburn, you’re way out of the loop,” Bourassa said. “It’s a time thing.”
SHA said there are a number factors that go into reopening any of the emergency services that were turned into a community hospital including “adequate human resources, skill enhancement and training, separation of staff and the physical separation of space status of COVID.”
In Radville, SHA said one of the challenges of resuming service was lack of staff.
“The Saskatchewan Health Authority is pleased to announce it has secured interim physician coverage for the last week of July and the month of August that will enable us to reopen emergency services,” SHA said in a news release published on Monday.
SHA said it will continue its efforts to seek full-time physician coverage in Radville.
“Physician recruitment remains a priority for Radville and efforts are ongoing,” SHA said.
“The SHA is also looking at other options for continuing to provide emergency services in the community, which may include utilizing virtual care in the emergency room setting.”
Bourassa said SHA sent all of its ER staff to Weyburn, leaving Radville with “nothing.”
Throughout June, emergency services were brought back into eight of the 12 communities that were turned into temporary community hospitals including ones in Preeceville and Davidson.
“Staffing vacancies and ongoing recruitment challenges are the reason the remaining in Broadview, Lanigan and Wolseley are not open,” SHA said.
“We do not have a timeline for those as it will be dependent on ability to recruit to ensure appropriate human resources are available.”
SHA said the current disruption for services in those communities started before the pandemic.
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