Inject cash into hospitals, NDP urges province
Deferred maintenance estimated at $3.3B, SHA executive says
Saskatchewan’s NDP Opposition has dug up a list of maintenance reports it says illustrates the sorry state of the province’s hospitals.
Standing in front of St. Paul’s Hospital in Saskatoon on Thursday, NDP Leader Ryan Meili called on the government to increase spending on outstanding hospital repairs before the situation grows worse.
He also promised the NDP would make a “significant” investment if the party wins this year’s provincial election — though he stopped short of saying how much it would spend.
“Obviously there are the budgetary realities and a need to triage the most urgent things first, but we have facilities that are at risk of having to shut down because of maintenance issues in parts of this province,” Meili said.
“It is doing us no good to wait until these facilities are in such a state of disrepair that they are not even usable.”
The province’s hospitals haven’t been fully assessed since 2013. An audit at that time found it would cost $2.2 billion to completely repair all of the buildings.
Derek Miller, executive director of infrastructure management for the Saskatchewan Health Authority, said a new audit is needed to determine the state of facilities today, but based on the last one, deferred maintenance is now estimated at $3.3 billion.
He attributes those rising costs to the passage of time. In Saskatoon, St. Paul’s was constructed in the 1960s and a significant part of Royal University Hospital dates back to 1955.
“The reality is we have aged infrastructure,” Miller said, adding that many regions in Canada struggle with the same issue.
“With older buildings comes high maintenance.”
The list of needed repairs obtained by the NDP through a freedom of information request included reports of multiple leaks from ceilings, sometimes in clinical spaces. There was also an “urgent” request to install a speaker in a negative pressure room, which would typically house someone with an extremely contagious disease like tuberculosis.
Miller said the SHA receives 2,000 such requests each month, the majority of which are dealt with in a matter of days.
However, some persist. One October report from St. Paul’s Hospital by provincial organ transplant program manager Erin Schimpf detailed a room with a floor so sloped that “staff have to hold on to their desks to stop themselves from rolling. Staff starting to complain of sore arms from holding themselves in place.”
Miller said the SHA has yet to repair the floor it because doing so would disrupt operations and needs to be co-ordinated.
It would be almost funny if it weren’t so ridiculous.
“It would be almost funny if it weren’t so ridiculous,” Meili said.
The ministry and health authority are in talks to develop an asset management strategy they say will create a structured plan outlining which repairs to address first.
The government has invested nearly $1.6 billion in health system capital projects since 2007, including $346 million on health infrastructure maintenance. While overall health care capital spending is set to decline in coming years, the ministry aims to increase the amount allotted for maintenance from $54,380,000 this year to $74,180,000 in the 2022-23 target.
The Starphoenix reported this month that issues with the roof of the new Saskatchewan Hospital in North Battleford were identified well before it failed last spring, requiring a full replacement.