{"id":269457,"date":"2025-11-08T07:09:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T07:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/269457\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T07:09:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T07:09:09","slug":"40-new-beds-open-at-saskatoon-city-hospital-as-province-faces-ongoing-staffing-pressures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/269457\/","title":{"rendered":"40 new beds open at Saskatoon City Hospital as province faces ongoing staffing pressures"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Text<\/p>\n

Listen to this article<\/p>\n

Estimated 3 minutes<\/p>\n

The audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s hospitals.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s largest city.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s hospital capacity by about 14 per cent.<\/p>\n

The new beds are part of a $60-million spend over two provincial budgets to expand inpatient capacity and support the Saskatchewan Health Authority\u2019s \u201ccapacity pressure\u201d action plans in Saskatoon and Regina.<\/p>\n

\"AHealth Minister Jeremy Cockrill says the first 40 beds, part of a new medicine unit on the hospital\u2019s sixth floor, are now open and serving patients. (Aishwarya Dudha\/CBC)<\/p>\n

SHA CEO Andrew Will said the new capacity is crucial to improving patient flow, especially in crowded emergency departments.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen no bed is available, patients stay in the emergency department until one opens,\u201d Will said. \u201cBy expanding both acute and continuing care capacity, we\u2019re addressing those pressures at their root cause.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

ER closure raises questions<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s announcement came less than a week after City Hospital\u2019s emergency department closed several hours early. Cockrill described it as a \u201cone-time freak disruption.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDue to physician availability, [it was] kind of an unplanned absence, a last-minute cancellation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s west side is part of a broader plan to relieve emergency department pressures.<\/p>\n

WATCH | 40 acute care beds added to City Hospital:\"\"<\/p>\n

40 acute care beds added to Saskatoon City Hospital<\/p>\n

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\u2019s unclear how those new beds will be staffed.NDP calls expansion \u2018out of touch\u2019 with reality<\/p>\n

The Opposition NDP says the government\u2019s celebration of new beds is tone-deaf, given the state of hospital staffing and recent closures.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t believe the minister is telling a good-news story about health care days after this very hospital closed without warning,\u201d Keith Jorgenson, the NDP\u2019s associate shadow health minister, said in a media release.<\/p>\n

\u201cPatients arriving at City Hospital were redirected to already overrun facilities at Royal University Hospital and St. Paul\u2019s,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat good are new hospital beds if he has no\u00a0plan\u00a0to bring on more frontline healthcare\u00a0staff?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-269457","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}