Saskatchewan Minister of Rural Health Randy Weekes stopped by the Davidson Health Centre July 12 in an effort to discuss the pressing issues on the minds of this community’s leaders and promote a new health care model for rural Saskatchewan.
Davidson Mayor Clayton Schneider said the message Weekes received in Davidson was clear. He said the minister was told a second doctor for the town is needed to help ease Dr. Lang’s workload and 24-hour emergency care in the community needs to be maintained.
“The things I brought up, my number one was letting him know that my biggest concern was retaining and adding a physician that meets everyone’s needs,” said Schneider. “What I mean by that is it meets everyone’s needs as in the doctor’s, the region and of course provincial and municipal. The second thing was maintaining a 24-hour emergency service. Currently Davidson is doing 10 days a month and one thing I know is if you do lose something, it is hard to get it back.”
Weekes said the discussion with the community leaders was “very positive” and the suggestion he had was Davidson is a good location for a Collaborative Emergency Centre (CEC). He said a CEC is a form of family health care that keeps emergency open and has flexible hours.
“As an example, keeping emergency care open from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. by a registered nurse and an advanced paramedic in consultation directly with a emergency physician somewhere in the province, so patients that would come in to emergency would be triaged (and) they would be asked to come back for same day or next day appointment with a physician or nurse practitioner,” said Weekes.
“Some would be treated and released and the true emergencies would be sent on by ambulance or STARS and dealt with by a physician in a hospital, an emergency physician.”
Weekes said the other key component of a CEC is the physician, nurse practitioner and health care team would provide 12-hour clinics to people during the day seven days a week, so there would be a need for another physician in the town. He said this gives emergency care to patients and also allows the physicians to not be on-call.
To read more please see the July 22 print edition of The Davidson Leader.