‘Patients never know’: NDP slams SHA for not making service disruption tool public

Saskatchewan nursing task force focused on retention, safety.

Saskatchewan NDP MLA Keith Jorgenson claims the province is leaving its citizens in the dark when it comes to health care.

During Thursday’s question period, Jorgenson alleged that the Government of Saskatchewan and the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) have access to a website that provides real-time updates about service disruptions at local hospitals – a website that isn’t available to the public.

“Patients never know if their local rural hospital is going to be open or closed, but this minister, this premier -- they know,” he said.

Jorgenson said the SHA’s publicly available service disruptions page only informs people on closures from the previous day (24 hours).

“It’s not real time and it often misses closures, further endangering the lives of rural folks,” Jorgenson told reporters.

The Saskatoon Churchill-Wildwood MLA said the NDP had obtained an SHA memo referencing a website with restricted access that provides information to SHA managers.

In an emailed statement to CTV News, the SHA did confirm that it has its own internal disruption tracking tool to manage service availability, saying it helps inform public reporting.

“The internal tracking tool is used to inform internal decision making but can contain errors as disruptions can occur on short notice and can be subject to frequent changes. Due to this variability, the tracking tool was not developed with a lens of being public facing, but to support internal decision making and service planning,” the email read.

“Healthline 811, emergency dispatch and the SHA’s system flow coordination centre have access to the tracking tool to support patient flow.”

Jorgenson said hiding access to such a site is the most “unforgivable thing” he’s ever seen a government do.

“It shows that this government is more concerned about their public perception and how people view them, than whether or not people live or die,” the Saskatoon Churchill-Wildwood MLA said.

The SHA stated that in early November, it introduced the daily reporting of emergency service availability throughout the province to better alert the public.

“As part of this, the SHA has undertaken significant internal work to support health system decision making and better inform our daily public reporting process,” it wrote.

“The SHA’s service disruption notices are updated daily by 4 p.m. and include ongoing disruptions, as well as any that will start within the next 24-hour period.”

The provincial health authority also said the updated service has improved the consistency of the information it has provided since last November.