Health authority addressing safety concerns at children’s hospital

The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) said it is addressing and prioritizing safety concerns at the new Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital (JPCH).

Some of those issues were brought to light by psychiatrists who toured the hospital and identified different areas where children could be at risk of harm or even self harm.

Corey Millar, vice-president of provincial programs with the SHA, would not give many specifics when it came to the hundreds of issues the authority said it’s addressing.

“Our project team have worked through all of the change requests and opportunities for improvement,” Millar said. “We’ve prioritized our Level 1s which were required to be completed to move safely into the building.”

Millar said hospital officials will have more Level 1 priorities that come up as they test the building and work through the logistics with each of the clinical areas, and they will address those according to priority as they come up.

“There were many examples of priority ones that were required. I think one of the ones that we spoke about at a previous engagement was the adult mental health room for critical mental health patients. We had that room ready and it was in place and ready for our patient move (Sunday). So that’s an example of a Level 1 priority,” Millar said.

On Monday an issue with pressurized airflow caused a ceiling tile to come loose and fall on a nurse. The nurse wasn’t hurt and adjustments were made to the controls.

Millar said they have a comprehensive list that the facilities and clinical teams are continuing to evaluate.

The JPCH opened to patients Sunday.