Skip to content

Town-hall meeting to discuss community's health-care challenges

Meeting will be Nov. 20 at 7 p.m. at Oxbow's Memorial Hall.
oxbow-health-meeting-1
A large crowd attended the town hall meeting in Oxbow in February.

OXBOW - A town-hall meeting will be happening in Oxbow on Nov. 20 to discuss health-care challenges facing the town.

The meeting will start at 7 p.m. at the Oxbow Memorial Hall.

Representatives of the Saskatchewan Health Authority and new physicians are among those expected to be in attendance. Cannington MLA Daryl Harrison and Prince Albert Northcote MLA Laura Ross, who has a background in nursing, are also scheduled to appear.

The SHA will discuss its virtual physician program, which was brought to the town back in August, as well as its travelling nurse initiative and Philippines recruitment effort, among other matters. The southeast Health Recruitment and Retention Committee is also on the agenda.

A question-and-answer session will wrap up the gathering.

Oxbow hosted a town hall meeting back in February to discuss a shortage of nurses in the community, which led to numerous service disruptions at the Galloway Health Centre.

Then in June, two physicians in the town, Dr. Karen Bodemer and Dr. David Hyman, announced they were leaving the community.

The SHA announced in August that it was implementing a virtual physician program in the town. Oxbow is back up to three physicians but is experiencing another shortage of nurses. The virtual physician program remains in place.