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A Biggar family says shortages of pediatric hospital beds in larger Saskatchewan centres are leaving rural residents with fewer options for emergency care and potentially significant costs when treatment cannot be provided closer to home.
Amy Haynes said her three-year-old son Nolan became seriously ill this spring with a fever above 40 C. When staff in Biggar could not bring the fever down and became concerned about possible seizures, doctors began searching for a facility with pediatric care.
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Beds were unavailable in Saskatoon, North Battleford and Swift Current, leaving Prince Albert as the closest centre able to accept him.
The result was a roughly two-and-a-half-hour, 235-kilometre ambulance transfer, followed by a bill of more than $1,300.
For Haynes, the experience highlights a broader issue facing rural families who may already expect to travel for specialized medicine, but are being pushed farther from home when beds in regional and urban hospitals are full.
“It shouldn’t be this hard to access care,” Haynes said.
Haynes said families living in smaller Saskatchewan communities understand some specialized services will not be available locally.
What she did not expect was for several larger centres closer to Biggar to also be unable to take her son.
Beds were unavailable for Nolan Haynes in Saskatoon, North Battleford and Swift Current, leaving Prince Albert as the closest centre able to accept the Biggar boy. (DiscoverMooseJaw/Submitted)
Biggar is about an hour’s driving distance from both Saskatoon and North Battleford, making the eventual trip to Prince Albert considerably longer than the family anticipated.
Haynes said the pediatric team in Prince Albert provided excellent care once Nolan arrived.
But she said the difficulty finding a bed exposed what she sees as a gap for rural residents: emergency care may begin close to home, but when a patient needs services a small hospital cannot provide, there is no guarantee a larger centre nearby will have room.
Haynes said Nolan’s physician strongly recommended the family use an ambulance rather than drive him themselves because of his condition.
The family followed that advice and was later billed for the transfer.
Haynes said the cost would have been roughly half as much had Nolan been transferred to Saskatoon or North Battleford instead.
The family has asked the Saskatchewan Health Authority to reduce the bill to what they would have paid for a transfer to a closer centre, arguing the longer journey was caused by bed availability rather than a choice they made.
At the time of her latest interview, Haynes said she was still waiting for a decision.
She said the expense can add another layer of pressure for rural residents who may already face fuel costs, time away from work, accommodation and other expenses when travelling for medical care.
Family has faced similar situation before
The Prince Albert transfer was not the family’s first experience travelling long distances because care was unavailable closer to home.
Haynes said her younger son needed an NG (nasogastric) tube placed last December when he was three months old.
With no bed available in Saskatoon, their doctor contacted other facilities and found space in Swift Current, requiring the family to make another long trip for pediatric care.
For Haynes, repeated experiences like those raise questions about how rural families are expected to navigate a system where their local hospital may not provide specialized care and nearby referral centres may also be at capacity.
“The biggest focus is just that there’s no care for a three-year-old in three of our largest facilities,” she said. “To me, that’s just crazy.”
Haynes said her family had written to the Saskatchewan Health Authority and their MLA about health-care concerns before Nolan’s latest hospitalization.
She said other families have since contacted her with their own experiences involving long ambulance transfers and bills that can reach thousands of dollars.
“I think that’s the only chance we have to actually change things is to talk about it and push for things,” Haynes said.
The Saskatchewan government has said it is working to expand capacity in Saskatoon hospitals by adding 146 beds.
The province has also noted ambulance services are not an insured benefit under the Canada Health Act and patients can face charges for ambulance transportation between facilities.
For Haynes, however, the concern goes beyond one ambulance invoice.
She said rural residents can accept that some care requires travel but believes families should not be left carrying additional costs when hospital capacity forces them much farther from home than medically necessary.
— with files from CJME News
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