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Forty new acute care beds are now open at Saskatoon City Hospital, part of a major expansion project the province says will relieve pressure across Saskatoon’s hospitals.
At a Friday news conference, Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill said it’s a significant step toward increasing hospital capacity and improving patient flow in Saskatchewan’s largest city.
“We know that capacity pressures have a real impact on patients, on staff and health-care providers, and those challenges are taken very seriously by the government of Saskatchewan,” he said.
The newly opened 40-bed unit is the first phase of a larger project that will add 109 new acute care beds at City Hospital by the end of 2026. When complete, the expansion is expected to increase Saskatoon’s hospital capacity by about 14 per cent.
The new beds are part of a $60-million spend over two provincial budgets to expand inpatient capacity and support the Saskatchewan Health Authority’s “capacity pressure” action plans in Saskatoon and Regina.
Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill says the first 40 beds, part of a new medicine unit on the hospital’s sixth floor, are now open and serving patients. (Aishwarya Dudha/CBC)
SHA CEO Andrew Will said the new capacity is crucial to improving patient flow, especially in crowded emergency departments.
“When no bed is available, patients stay in the emergency department until one opens,” Will said. “By expanding both acute and continuing care capacity, we’re addressing those pressures at their root cause.”
Will said the capacity pressure action plan for Saskatoon, launched in late 2023, has already led to a 22 per cent reduction in patients waiting in hospital for a continuing-care space and a 17 per cent decrease in admitted patients waiting in emergency rooms for inpatient beds.
To make room for the new units, some outpatient and continuing-care programs are being moved from City Hospital to community settings, including Market Mall.
When the full expansion is complete, the SHA expects to add more than 500 staff, according to the province. Cockrill said about 150 of those positions have already been filled.
ER closure raises questions
Friday’s announcement came less than a week after City Hospital’s emergency department closed several hours early. Cockrill described it as a “one-time freak disruption.”
“Due to physician availability, [it was] kind of an unplanned absence, a last-minute cancellation,” he said.
Cockrill said the province has introduced incentives for ER doctors and is recruiting physicians both domestically and internationally. He said the new urgent care centre under construction on Saskatoon’s west side is part of a broader plan to relieve emergency department pressures.
WATCH | 40 acute care beds added to City Hospital:
40 acute care beds added to Saskatoon City Hospital
The province has added 40 of the 109 acute care beds it announced in March to the general medicine unit at Saskatoon City Hospital. But with the hospital still operating on reduced emergency hours, the Opposition says it’s unclear how those new beds will be staffed.NDP calls expansion ‘out of touch’ with reality
The Opposition NDP says the government’s celebration of new beds is tone-deaf, given the state of hospital staffing and recent closures.
“I can’t believe the minister is telling a good-news story about health care days after this very hospital closed without warning,” Keith Jorgenson, the NDP’s associate shadow health minister, said in a media release.
“Patients arriving at City Hospital were redirected to already overrun facilities at Royal University Hospital and St. Paul’s,” he said. “What good are new hospital beds if he has no plan to bring on more frontline healthcare staff?”