Dr. Francisco Lang needs help. The number of patients that are walking through his doors at the Davidson Family Practice seeking assistance along with those coming to emergency services at the Davidson Health Centre are increasing every day and he simply can’t keep up.

Lang said this growth in problems that he is dealing with is due to the “migration of doctors” in nearby communities to group practices in bigger centres such as Saskatoon or Regina or even to other provinces. The fact that these patients are coming from different health regions other than Heartland Health is of no importance.

“As a result, there is an accumulation of the need for medical services here and you immediately realize that you are not enough to support and satisfy those expectations from the community,” said Lang. “It’s not that the community gets more illnesses; it’s not that the community is losing their healthy status. It’s simply that the volume and the problems around the communities are getting more complicated. This reason is why in rural communities or small communities, sole practitioners disappear.”

The Davidson Family Practice has seen a steady increase in patients since the doctor in Imperial left a few years ago and is likely to get a huge boost when Dr. Narinda Maree leaves for Moose Jaw at the beginning of August. Emergency services at the Davidson Health Centre have also seen a wide growth and will continue to do so considering all emergency services run out of Craik will now be shifted to Davidson when their doctor leaves.

Lang said a new primary-care model is needed to fix this situation or the same result will occur where a sole practitioner simply burns out. He said a team of doctors is needed to cover such a large area with two ideally placed in Davidson and a third operating out of Craik with basic emergency services at a minimum in that town.

“Patients do not consider the boundaries to move around to get medical services that are needed,” he said in reference to the existence of the different health care regions. “As such, a doctor in a community may not consider those boundaries either in terms of geographical division. Medically, I find it inappropriate for me to not treat a patient from Craik just based on the fact that patient belongs to another health region.”

To read more please see the July 9 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

The Carleton Trail Regional College (CTRC) is closing its Davidson campus “around” July 20, but any services that are required by residents of Davidson can still be accessed through a different location, according to the CTRC interim CEO.

“The activity in Davidson was not as active as the other campuses were,” said Bill Cooke, referring to the small number of students who use the school compared to the campuses at Southey, Watrous, Wynyard and Humboldt and the limited number of instructors willing to teach at Davidson.

“We have fixed resources. Frankly, we don’t have any more money to do anything differently (than close the campus), so we have to work within what we have.

“With the building closing, it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference to the provision of services,” he said. “Any services needed in Davidson can be provided through Southey, it can be provided through Watrous or it can be provided in some sort of unique way. This is really making do with what are becoming quite limited resources.”

The CTRC is involved with upgrading basic adult education as well as credited trades programs such as emergency medical services (EMS), carpentry, plumbing and electrical as well as non-credit programs like photography and gardening.

Mary Jane Morrison, the mayor of Davidson, said she was not consulted prior to hearing from Cooke on June 21 that the campus would be closing. She said the town would fight to keep services in Davidson and will keep all lines of communication open to remain a voice in discussions to keep some programs here.

“I think it’s a real loss for our community,” said Morrison adding some jobs would be lost because of this decision, not to mention the harm done to mature students who don’t have the time to get to other campuses after their day jobs. “It’s always nice to provide that post-secondary education here, so people wouldn’t have to travel.

“When he told me they were closing, he said the numbers were down in Davidson. I understood that from some of the research that was done; however, I said that I didn’t agree. First of all, I don’t know how hard they tried to deliver a variety of programming here. At earlier times, there was a better job done at that.  I tried to point out a few things like Davidson is a growing community and there are a few classes here that they had taken away (that were well used).

“When he delivered the news to me, I said I wouldn’t keep Davidson out of the loop in the future,” she said.  “We mean that.”

To read more please see the July 2 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

The Craik detachment of the RCMP is recommending people lock their homes and cars after a number of break-ins and vehicle thefts in Davidson sometime between Saturday, June 16 and the early morning hours of Monday, June 18.

Const. Kevin Morrissette said the RCMP is investigating after a few unlocked cars and one business on Railway Street was broken into and cash and possessions stolen.  He added two cars were also stolen from the town of Davidson including a red Pontiac G5 from the 200 block of Hamilton Street, which was later found abandoned on Highway 11 just south of Girvin, and a green Dodge Spirit from the 900 block of Government Road later found at the Davidson Sports Grounds.

“It is very much a good idea to keep your house and vehicle locked and also keep your vehicle parked in a well-lit area,” said Morrissette.  “Well-lit places do deter thieves from doing anything like that because they don’t want to be identified.  They don’t want to be detected and they tend to shy away from that.

“People sometimes think that if someone wants to break into their car, that they’ll break in,” he said.  “They’ll smash a window or something anyway.  The determined criminal will just smash a window, but then again if your vehicle is parked close to your home, smashing a window would create noise and that is going to deter them.  For example, in this case, they didn’t go into vehicles that were locked.  If it’s easy and convenient for them to just open the door and root through your car, it’s more tempting.”

The warmer weather does tend to bring about more people passing through town, especially with the major highway nearby, but the problem of convenience crimes occurs year-round.  If a transient or even a group of neighbourhood kids see an unlocked car or easy object to grab and run, they could be more tempted to go for it, said Morrissette.

“We recommend that people lock the doors of vehicles and not leave any keys inside the vehicles,” he said.  “If you have a motion light at your home that also helps as far as people breaking into garages or sheds and things like that.”

As for the Davidson crimes, the Craik RCMP are asking for the public’s assistance in finding these crooks and the Saskatchewan Crime Stoppers will also pay up to $2,000 for any information which leads to an arrest.

“I can’t speculate if it was kids around town,” said Morrissette.  “At this point, we don’t have any information as far as who it was.”