Broadview, Arcola, Wolseley hospitals lose acute care services
Oxbow to lose its services in next phase of SHA conversion of smaller rural hospitals to alternate levels of care
May 17, 2020, 8:55 am
Jordan Stricker, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Broadview, Arcola, and Wolseley hospitals have lost their acute care services and have been transitioned to "alternate level of care" as part of the Saskatchewan Health Authority's Covid-19 plan.
The SHA has begun to implement its temporary conversion of rural community hospitals in the province starting off with nine facilities in rural southern Saskatchewan, with another three to be converted in the next phase.
The SHA’s COVID-19 surge plan outlines temporary conversion of community hospitals to Alternate Level of Care (ALC).
ALC referes to palliative, convalescing, respite, rehab or long-term care as opposed to acute care
The facilities that have been converted to ALC are Arcola, Lanigan, Broadview, Wolseley, Davidson, Preeceville, Radville, Herbert and Kerrobert.
Biggar, Leader and Oxbow will lose their acute care services in phase 2 of the conversion.
According to the SHA, discussions with community leaders in all 12 communities have occurred throughout the process in order to specifically outline these changes in each community hospital, although community leaders and members told the media last week they had no warning of the closures, and no news release was issued by the Saskatchewan Health Authority on the closures.
The hospitals identified last week will be temporarily closed to acute care admissions and emergency services will not be available.
he closures were announced in the SHA master plan for dealing with Covid-19 several weeks ago--the same plan that shows if coronavirus cases surge many hospitals will be converted to treat coronavirus cases only--including Kipling, Esterhazy and Yorkton--and Moosomin will be the one non-Covid hospital to treat other medical cases in the region.
SHA CEO Scott Livingstone said the conversions are taking place to protect people in long-term and to use facilities’ capacity to provide care for alternative level of care positions in larger facilities.
“[It’s] so that we can both build capacity to support the reopening of the health care system, but also maintain capacity for COVID-19 surges and outbreaks as they arise,” said Livingstone during a press conference.
Although the cases in Saskatchewan remain low among the province, the SHA is continuing with the phased approach in the event outbreaks like those in the north do arise again.
“We will continue to manage our capacity as the premier has referred to before," Livingstone said. "Once we restart our healthcare system, we will be using that dimmer switch as we watch what happens across the province, with respect to the mixing of individuals and reduced restrictions.”