Despite a recent change to how frequently the Saskatchewan Health Authority updates health facility closures online, the Saskatchewan NDP says more is needed to ensure the safety of patients and the sanity of staff.
On Tuesday, the Saskatchewan Health Authority began reporting facility closures twice-daily at 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.
NDP Associate Health Critic Keith Jorgenson says that isn’t sufficient, as facilities often close for several hours during the day between reporting times, leaving would-be patients high and dry.
Jorgenson says live updates are required to ensure accuracy and efficiency, and the NDP has proposed legislation that would mandate a website of that nature.
“Usually, we’ve been speaking of this in terms of rural closures, but (this would be beneficial) even in urban settings, where there would be a website where you could see which services are available and which ones are not.”
To reporters in Saskatoon on Tuesday morning, he relayed an experience that he had over the long weekend. Jorgenson says he was referred for bloodwork on Friday, and when he arrived at LifeLabs on Saturday to get it done, he was greeted by a memo on the door that read, “All LifeLabs locations will be closed Saturday May 16th.” It added that this was due to a Laboratory Information System computer upgrade.
He adds that, upon calling Healthline 811 to inquire if this closure was unique, the operator was not aware of the closure.
“What I find so disturbing about this isn’t even the disruption itself. What disturbs me is that this disruption was planned, and the SHA chose to tell absolutely no one what they were about to do.”
The SHA, up until Tuesday, only posted closures once per day at 4:00pm. Jorgenson says that wasn’t helpful when many closures begin in the morning. He used a Highway Hotline analogy to get his point across.
“We had some inclement weather on the weekend. Would it be helpful today to know the highways were bad on Saturday? Not really.”
He explains that he was sent to an emergency room to get bloodwork done, being that all LifeLabs in the city, and he suspects the province, were closed that day.
“It shows a disregard for other patients and health care workers, because it obviously puts an additional strain on people who are seeking emergency care, not just needing to get blood drawn.”
He says the NDP will be writing to the Ministry of Health about this as they continue to propose legislation to get a live-update system in place.
The Ministry of Health Communications released a subsequent statement that reads, “On Saturday, May 16, the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) successfully implemented a system upgrade in Saskatoon within the SHA’s Lab Information System. This upgrade marks the successful completion of a significant provincial initiative, bringing all 12 Lab Information System instances onto a standardized version and unified support platform. For the first time in Saskatchewan’s history, this establishes a consistent, province-wide foundation that enhances system alignment, operational efficiency, and long-term sustainability. To ensure continuity of care for patients in emergency and acute settings during the system upgrade, teams in SHA facilities utilized downtime procedures for specimen collection and reporting of results. This ensured no impact to patient care in emergency and acute settings during the system upgrade, though there may be a minor delay in test results being reported within patients’ MySaskHealthRecord profile. The system upgrade is complete, and normal operations have resumed.
Lifelabs operates community lab collection on behalf of the SHA, providing laboratory collection services at five locations in Saskatoon. The hours of these locations vary, with some locations being closed on weekends and statutory holidays. We understand that Lifelabs closed three of their Saskatoon collection sites on Saturday, May 16 to accommodate the system upgrade. Lifelabs has indicated that they proactively posted notice of these closures to minimize impact to patients. We acknowledge that this represented an inconvenience to patients seeking non-emergent testing at these facilities. However, this had no impact on test collection and reporting for patients in emergency and acute settings.
