REGINA - The opposition New Democrats are again raising alarm bells about healthcare closures in the province.
At a news conference at the legislature Monday, Opposition Leader Carla Beck, alongside Rural and Remote Health Critic Matt Love and Ethics and Democracy Critic Meara Conway, released new SHA data outlining hundreds of service disruptions and closures at a minimum of 53 hospitals in Saskatchewan between August 2019 and July 2023.
The NDP stood beside a map showing the locations of the disruptions across Saskatchewan.
“After 16 years of the Sask Party government, there aren’t enough staff in this province to keep the lights on in our hospitals,” said Beck. “Rather than making this a priority, we see the Premier spending millions on redundant pet projects and on expensive international travel. I think people in this province expect their leaders to get the basics right. Spending wisely and focussing on the basics, addressing that which keeps Saskatchewan people up at night. That shouldn’t be too much to ask.”
The NDP’s news release states there were at least 951 distinct closures to emergency rooms, hospital laboratories, surgical theaters, or other departments. Emergency rooms saw 407 distinct closures amounting to 3,029 lost days.
For basic radiography and laboratory services there were 278 distinct closures amounting to 1,900 lost days.
Venues seeing the worst disruptions included at Herbert and District Integrated Healthcare Facility, with 48 disruptions over 951 days. Meadow Lake Hospital saw 169 disruptions with an average length of five days each for a total of 774 days disrupted. There was also the closure at Lanigan hospital which lasted 731 days.
“Honestly I can’t think of any industry where someone could pretty much get zero results, take no responsibility for their failures, and still keep their job,” said Love. “Moe and his ministers have been saying they’re working on it. Well, they’ve been in the top job for 16 years. What have they been doing during that time?”
Love said with respect to the Meadow Lake and Lanigan closure that there was nothing temporary about it. “These are service closures and the government has done absolutely nothing to take responsibility for the impact this is having on Saskatchewan people.”
He also accused the government of “not being straight” about health care and of having “fought tooth and nail to limit our access” to the SHA’s information.
The NDP said the SHA data was obtained through Freedom of Information requests, which they claim took nearly a year to obtain and required intervention from the office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner on Dec. 1 in order for the government to finally cooperate.
“We’ve been trying to access this information since February, and it’s now December,” said Conway. She said the Moe government responded to their request five months late, and only with a list of the 53 hospitals that had closures, with “no description of how long the closures lasted or the services disrupted.”
The Opposition then submitted a new FOI request this summer, but noted the Moe government extended the deadline to meet the FOI by 30 days and then didn’t meet that extended deadline.
After the Information and Privacy Commissioner requested the government respond, the government finally did respond on Dec. 8, which the NDP pointed out was one day after the Leg session ended. Details were provided for 50 of the 53 hospitals, not the full amount.
Conway accused government of being “allergic to transparency. It’s a pattern, it’s a common theme that connects many of this government’s actions. This government is not being straight with the people of Saskatchewan.”
