Five years after COVID, Sarah Mills still pondering life's mysteries
Sarah Mills looks back at the COVID pandemic and some of the questions she asked herself to stave off boredom. Mills say...
Several communities north of Saskatoon are getting more ambulance service starting in November.
The Government of Saskatchewan and Saskatchewan Health Authority announced Monday enhanced ambulance service will be coming this month, with the service to be based in Martensville.
The provincial government is providing $1.16 million in annual funding to the SHA for the service, which is to be operated by Medavie Health Services.
Services will be available 12 hours a day in November before becoming 24 hours a day in March.
“This funding will support the addition of one staffed ambulance for the area,” Rod MacKenzie, the SHA’s provincial programs executive director, said in a release.
”Since provincial funding was announced in April, the SHA has been studying historical need and growing demands for ambulance services, response times to and from various communities just north of Saskatoon, and demographics and growth patterns for communities in the area to identify the response base for the new service.”
Communities including Warman, Martensville, Borden, Dalmeny, Hepburn, Langham and Osler will be getting the enhanced service.
“We thank all of the communities and rural municipalities who participated in our consultations,” MacKenzie said. “We identified through those consultations that both Martensville and Warman would be excellent communities in which to base this service.
“Martensville was chosen because it is more central to a slightly higher population of the area, decreasing the response distance and response times to a greater number of residents.”
Martensville Mayor Kent Muench said it was “a great investment in our community and region” that will help an area that previously was underserved.
“Whenever you have an emergency, you want those first responders as soon as you can and we’ve heard that that isn’t always the case,” Muench said.
“Our local first responders, they’re very professional and very good at responding to our community’s needs. There’s certain things they can do and certain things Medavie can do and I think that’s where that missing piece has been.”
In a statement, Warman Mayor Gary Philipchuk admitted he was disappointed the base wasn’t put in his city. The statement also said that with around 30,000 people in the region, the 12-hour-a-day service until March won’t fully address the issue of response times.
“While our region definitely needs this ambulance service, we recognized from the start of this process that a base should have been awarded to Warman and Martensville, not one or the other,” Philipchuk said in the release.
“With our continued rapid growth, we recognize — sooner than later — Warman will desperately need our own base to allow our residents to receive sufficient ambulatory services.”
The statement from Warman noted the city is now the only one in Saskatchewan without an ambulance base.
