Saskatchewan ‘Right to Know’ ER closures act clears latest hurdle

Rural residents may soon see real-time ER closure updates after the province backed NDP legislation introduced last year. Wayne Mantyka reports.

People seeking health care at rural emergency rooms could soon receive more timely updates about hospital disruptions.

On Thursday, the Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly unanimously approved Bill 606: The Provincial Health Authority ER Closures ‘Right to Know’ Amendment Act in its second reading.

The bill requires all emergency room closures to be publicly reported.

The motion came from the Saskatchewan NDP, who have repeatedly been calling for greater speed and transparency from the provincial government in informing patients of emergency room closures.

“Government’s current way of communicating ER closures in rural Saskatchewan is simply to post them at 4 p.m. each day,” NDP MLA Jared Clarke said to media prior to the vote.

“This is not live. This is not real-time. People in rural Saskatchewan who are experiencing an emergency in that moment don’t know whether their local ER is open or closed.”

Clarke said disruptions have been rampant across the province.

“They used to post this information a few years ago, then they took it down so that people couldn’t see how bad it has gotten,” Clarke said.

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“Now they post [disruption updates] at 4 p.m. and we’ve have many examples where hospital closures that are posted on communities’ Facebook pages don’t show up on the website later that day.”

During question period, Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill said the province was committed to providing reliable and factual information about emergency service availability across the province and said real-time information is available through the 811 Health Line.

“When the NDP’s bill came forward, we looked at it, said you know we’re already doing much of this work and moving in that direction and so again an opportunity to take a bit of the politics out of healthcare and maybe work together,” Cockrill said to the media.

Before the second reading, NDP MLA Keith Jorgenson said his office has tracked over 800 service disruptions and alterations from the province within an eight month period.

“If you’re having a heart attack, do you want to know if your hospital was open yesterday, or do you want to know if it’s open right now?” he said during the debate.

MLA Kevin Weedmark, deputy secretary to the minister of health, said the province has avoided over 5,800 service disruptions in rural communities and continues to offer incentives to rural and remote health care workers to stay in those areas.

“As important as it is to notify the public of temporary disruptions, … it’s even more important to ensure that we have the staff and the resources to ensure that those disruptions are as rare as possible, and that they become more and more uncommon,” Weedmark said.

The bill will be referred to committee. Its third reading will be completed at an undetermined later date.