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The Opposition NDP wants the government to step in and save a Regina medical centre from closing down and leaving thousands of patients without a family doctor.
The Gardens Community Health Centre opened in 2018, operating as a multi-disciplinary clinic giving patients access to doctors, nurses, pharmacists and therapists seven days a week.
The province contributed $4.3 million in its first year and $3 million annually to help fund the clinic, which it said would reduce emergency room visits and “better serve patients with complex medical health issues.”
But in September, patients received letters informing them that the clinic will close at the end of November because it couldn’t find doctors to replace its two retiring physicians.
“It will be devastating to a community where already far too many people don’t have access to a family doctor,” NDP MLA Meara Conway told reporters at the legislature on Friday.
Conway said about 5,000 patients stand to lose their family doctors when the clinic closes.
She challenged Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill to present a plan by Monday at 1.p.m. CST detailing how the province could keep the clinic open.
“I think that the health minister has the levers to do something effective and bold with this clinic because it’s shuttering and because they’ve already invested $20 million,” Conway said.
Province says the clinic is a private business
In an emailed response to CBC, the Saskatchewan Health Authority said that despite a partnership with the province, the Gardens is a private clinic that operated independently of the SHA and “… effective November 30, 2025, the Gardens Community Health Centre will be permanently closing.”
Remaining Gardens staff, including a registered nurse, pharmacist and paramedic, will be moved to working in the “South Network in Regina,” the SHA said.
“We are currently developing plans on where service providers currently based at the Gardens Community Health Centre will be located in the future, and we will communicate these plans to patients and staff when they are finalized,” the statement read.
Conway said she’s hearing from doctors that the current fee-for-service model at the clinic doesn’t work and made it difficult to recruit new physicians.
The clinic had been advertising for two new doctors since January, according to the NDP.
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The Ministry of Health commissioned an external review of workplace culture for doctors in Regina hospitals. It suggested that poor work culture hurt patient care and recruitment efforts.
Conway said the province should step in and operate the Gardens as a community clinic with salaried doctors.
“We need to look at something like the community clinic model where we see team-based care, where we see coverage, where we see good quality of life for all of the professionals at that location.”
Staff at the Gardens Community Health Centre declined CBC’s request for a comment.