New nurses in Kamsack mean hospital beds will reopen next month

There’s a lot of relief being felt in a Saskatchewan town, after a major step was taken towards reopening beds at the local hospital.

The relief comes in the form of six new nurses hired to work in Kamsack, northeast of Yorkton, where the hospital has been struggling without many local services over the past several months, including a complete absence of open acute care beds.

According to the provincial government, the new hires mean some beds at the hospital will be open again next month.

Nancy Brunt, Kamsack’s mayor, said the new hires are very welcome.

“That’s a sense of relief,” Brunt said. “It’s good for our community. It’s good for our physicians in that they can attend to their patients locally.”

The news about the new hires was shared by Lt.-Gov. Russ Mirasty during the speech from the throne on Wednesday.

“In Kamsack, the hiring of six registered nurses this fall will result in the reopening of some hospital beds in early November, while work continues to recruit additional staff to fully restore services,” Mirasty shared.

Brunt said she doesn’t know if the beds being reopened will be acute care beds, but said she’s grateful for the work the provincial government is doing to help recruit health-care professionals to the town.

The throne speech noted that more than 100 new full-time, permanent job opportunities for various health-care positions were posted in the first week of October by the Saskatchewan Health Authority.

“As these positions are filled, more and more services will be resumed and stabilized across urban, rural and northern Saskatchewan,” the speech said.

“We appreciate everything that the (Saskatchewan Health Authority) is doing to get us back up to full staff,” Brunt said.

But despite the relief at Wednesday’s announcement, Brunt noted the town has several more positions that still need to be filled before the hospital is back at full capacity. The mayor said she’s been told that more lab workers are needed in order to keep the emergency room open at all times.

The mayor said she was also glad to see the government engaging with foreign workers who already live in the area, who have medical training but have not been able to get Canadian licences to practise.

“It’s generally good news. I’m happy to see the government is working harder to recruit staff,” Brunt said. “It makes me much more hopeful.”