Fort Sask. Hospital reopens labour and delivery unit

File. (Alberta Health Services)

EDMONTON — Labour and delivery services at Fort Saskatchewan Community Hospital will resume after being closed for nearly three months to make room for COVID-19 patients.

In a press release sent by Alberta Health Services (AHS) on Monday, the hospital resumed labour and delivery services at 8 a.m.

The units closed on Dec. 28 to make room for COVID-19 patients. Since then pregnant women who were supposed to give birth in Fort Saskatchewan were asked to plan to deliver their baby at the Sturgeon Community Hospital in St. Albert – over 30 kilometres away.

According to AHS, COVID-19 control measures have been put in place to ensure patients at the labour and delivery unit remain safe.

AHS says for the duration of the pandemic, due to the size and capacity of Fort Saskatchewan’s labour and delivery ward, any COVID-19 positive and COVID-19 presumptive patients will be referred or transferred to an alternative labour and delivery site in the Edmonton zone, so long as the delivery is not imminent.