The province has been seeing numerous problems with HealthLine 811.
There has been a litany of complaints about the 24-hour health line in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. Among them are numerous reports of people having to wait on hold for hours without getting through, as well as dropped calls and other problems.
The News-Optimist is aware of at least one situation in North Battleford where a user with symptoms tried phoning the 811 line, but eventually gave up in frustration and sought medical attention instead.
In a conference call of government officials with reporters Tuesday, the province’s emergency operations command centre lead Derek Miller acknowledged calls had increased considerably..
“Certainly the health line has been receiving significantly greater volumes of calls than we would typically see,” said Miller.
Over the weekend, he said, they had more than doubled the staff working the 811 system. Miller said they have also increased the number of lines to take calls, and were in the process that day of transitioning to a new 811 phone infrastructure.
“This new call infrastructure will increase the phone lines to over 500,” Miller said to reporters, with “the ability to increase that.” He said it would also eliminate the possibility of dropped calls, and allow for a call back feature where people could select to get a call back if they didn’t want to wait in line.
The other advantage of the new system, said Miller, is it would allow for distributed staff across the province to also provide support.
