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The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) will be doing consultations as it works out how to use new provincial money for the temporary mental health assessment unit at Royal University Hospital (RUH).
The province added $30 million in new funding for mental health services in its 2019-20 budget. Of that money, $1.5 million is earmarked for the unit at RUH.
Colleen Quinlan, executive director of mental health and addictions for the SHA, said the organization would try to get input from a broad range of people before deciding exactly how to use the funding.
“We’ll need to be doing some consultation with our patients and families, stakeholders and staff et cetera,” she said Thursday on The Brent Loucks Show.
While she couldn’t yet give specifics, she said the unit would likely shift its focus.
“Well, we were provided with money in this budget to use that space for kind of a different function. We’re looking at more of a short-stay unit,” she said.
The short-stay unit will have seven beds and will provide a place to stay for people up to seven days.
The unit is meant to stay open until the new Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital (JPCH) opens later this year.
The JPCH adult emergency room will include private spaces that the province says are more suitable to mental health emergency care, in addition to mental health assessment services.
