Location of new Weyburn health-care facility revealed

It was an announcement nearly 30 years in the making.

A new hospital will be built in Weyburn, with a target date for completion of 2023.

Premier Scott Moe made the announcement in Weyburn on Friday morning, at the location where the hospital will be built along Fifth Avenue North near the intersection with Hamilton Street.

“Weyburn will have a beautiful new 35-bed facility, consolidating our acute care services with mental health and inpatient services,” Moe said during the announcement.

“It will also be home to consolidated public health, primary health as well as our EMS services including a helipad that will enable STARS air ambulance to move critically ill patients to and from the new hospital.”

“This announcement is a great milestone, one that our community and businesses have long supported and looked forward to for many years,” Weyburn Mayor Marcel Roy added. “We as a community are very fortunate to have such dedicated individuals who have served on the Weyburn Hospital Foundation, and have worked hard to raise amazing amounts of money towards this essential hospital.”

“I’m very proud of the fact that eight rural municipalities made significant financial contributions to see this project come forward, and I’m thankful that the foundation had the foresight to co-ordinate those efforts and to accumulate those funds so the community had that component,” added Carmen Sterling, Reeve of the R.M. of Weyburn.

“The Weyburn and District Hospital Foundation is very happy to witness this vital step in the building of a new hospital to serve Weyburn and area,” Weyburn and District Hospital Foundation Board Chair Jeff Hayward said.  “Thanks to the encouragement of many visionaries as far back as 1995, community backing for this facility has been strong.”

The site for the new hospital was selected after a detailed analysis of several factors, including the cost of the land, zoning requirements and servicing of the land.

In the 2019 provincial budget, $5 million had been set aside for the planning of the new hospital. Funding left over from that budgeted amount, $2.5 million, was used for this fiscal year.

During his address, Moe said the advocacy for the new hospital has been heard from all corners of the Weyburn area — the City of Weyburn, the R.M. of Weyburn, the business community, residents, those who work in the health-care field in the area, and even a member of his cabinet.

“We certainly — and Jim (Reiter, health minister) and Warren (Kaeding, rural and remote health minister) will attest to this — we’ve been hearing about it from your elected representative,” Moe said, motioning towards Weyburn-Big Muddy MLA Dustin Duncan.

“We’ve heard about it from Dustin, then we heard about it from Dustin again, then we heard it from Dustin again, and again, and again, and I want to thank you for your advocacy for the people who you serve, Dustin.”

The new hospital will have fewer beds than the current Weyburn General Hospital, which has 40 acute care beds. Reiter explained the decision was made to reduce the number of beds due to a needs assessment of the area the hospital will be serving.

“Officials tell me they’re comfortable with where they’ve landed,” Reiter said. “The optimum level for a hospital for capacity is usually somewhere around 90 per cent; that’s where you’re getting optimal flow and best use of staff. The last quite a few years, with the beds here in Weyburn, it’s been at about 40 per cent, so they can scale it back somewhat and still be at that optimum level.”

While it may not be part of the facilities when the new hospital opens, there will be the capacity for expansion to allow for full-time obstetrics in Weyburn.

“It’s not necessarily just a facility issue, it’s also a personnel issue as well, so what the (Saskatchewan Health Authority) has recommended, and what’s been approved, is that one of the beds will be designed to the Canadian standard for labour and delivery in the event that service does return,” explained Duncan.

Spencer Kemp, Discover Weyburn