Emergency services at St. Peter’s Hospital in Melville closing for 24 hours

Emergency services at St. Peter’s Hospital in Melville, Sask., will not be available for 24 hours as of Tuesday at 8 a.m.

The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) addressed the temporary disruption in a recent public service announcement.

“Due to recent physician vacancies in the community we are expecting to see some service disruptions to the emergency department at St. Peter’s Hospital throughout the coming months while we recruit additional physicians for the community,” SHA told Global News in an email Monday.

“The SHA and Emmanuel Health are working closely with Sask Docs, the local physician group and community stakeholders on physician recruitment for Melville, including locum physicians for Emergency Department coverage.

“Although efforts are currently underway to recruit physicians for Melville, to date we do not have a replacement for both vacancies and we expect this could take several months. We are working to secure locum coverage for anticipated disruptions in service to the emergency department over the next few months.”

SHA said inpatient and laboratory/X-Ray services will not be affected by the shutdown.

Nearby ER services are available at the Yorkton Regional Health Centre, St. Anthony’s Hospital in Esterhazy, All Nations Healing Hospital in Fort Qu-Appelle and the Southeast Integrated Care Centre in Moosomin.

The ER are will reopen on Wednesday at 8 a.m.

1:52 Canada’s 1st case of South African COVID-19 variant detected in Alberta