Currently the Central East Hub of Sun Country which includes Redvers, Carlyle, and Arcola is struggling with one full time physician, one who is almost back to full time status, and a full time nurse practitioner. These three are to provide the majority of services with help from registered nurses and paramedics.
Sun Country has determined, however, that the area needs nine practitioners in order to make services sustainable to the general population. The health region had determined this need through information collected on populations of the area in 2008. As they looked at the statistics it was determined that the Redvers, Carlyle, and Arcola hub is servicing roughly 12,000 people.
"[W]e do see this as a crisis and it's an urgency to reopen the Arcola Health Centre..." Marga Cugnet, President and CEO of Sun Country, stated.
This number was determined by the practitioner plan for the area which is based on statistics from the Ministry of Health that includes where people are accessing services, what travel patterns look like, and which groupings of physicians can be put together to create a sustainable model. In the grouping they looked at a 45 minute driving period max for travel to a facility, which had led to the Redvers doctor working on-call hours out of the Arcola Hospital.
This is called the Hub and Spoke Model, which is very similar to the Moosomin model.
"[It] is a centralized grouping of practitioners that would then provide services to outlying communities and it's quite similar to what Moosomin is doing right now where they have their docs located pretty well in Moosomin and they're providing services to Maryfield, to Wawota, in our region, they're going out to Esterhazy and I think they're even going to Manitoba," Cugnet explained.
Sun Country is currently concerned with the actual population that the area should be servicing as it is now 2013 and there has been a rising population in the area since 2008 when the statistics being used were recorded meaning this number could be even higher today.
"We know that there's been population increases in the region in the last couple of years. Because we did this plan in 2011 and it was actually based on population numbers of, I think, 2008, if I recall. We've actually gone back to the Ministry [of Health] and we're having a consultant update the numbers to see if there's a significant change; but, this gives us roughly an idea of what we need to strive for," Cugnet explained.
Sun Country is looking for both doctors and nurse practitioners to fill these openings.
"They could do very well, maybe, with five doctors and two or three nurse practitioners. I think we want a good grouping of doctors because of course to meet that on-call piece. So, you know, if we can get a good group of physicians in there then when one needs to go away for education or needs to take some holidays the whole system isn't toppling, right," Cugnet stated.
Recently, on Feb. 25, health services in Kipling were reopened with the assistance of what is being called the Regina locum group. This group is not associated with the Saskatchewan Medical Association's (SMA) locum group. The SMA group consists of 10 individuals who focus on short term relief of rural physicians who need time off for various reasons; but, the group based out of Regina is independent.
"It's a group of doctors that have, right now, made a decision that they're willing to go out to rural communities..." Cugnet said, "I think this is a good opportunity for them to get out into various communities and get an idea of what the communities are like, what the practice is like, and they're fairly young doctors so we're hoping that, you know, one or two of them might permanently like one of the locations they're practicing at and eventually come and stay permanently."
This independent group has been working out of Kipling; yet, Sun Country is discussing further use of the group in other areas.
"We're actually working with that group as well to see if they can recruit enough physicians to do something similar for Arcola for a short period of time," Cugnet explained.
To discuss further concerns that have been voiced by the Central East Hub, Sun Country has met with Carlyle Town Council and will also meet with the Moose Mountain Health Care Recruitment Committee.
Sun Country was unable to comment on the January seating of SIPPA, the international assessment program; but, they did say their two designated seats for the May seating have been filled and one intends to move to Redvers if they are able to successfully complete the program. They are also hoping that they are able to fill extra seats, which are available on a first come, first serve basis before the May sitting begins. Sun Country is therefore continuing its search for physicians and nurse practitioners in order to serve all communities in their region.
"[W]e're still continuing to do all the things that we've been talking about [recruitment efforts] and, you know, we need to keep doing this because even though if we find one physician or two physicians, we still have a long ways to go to get to what our target is," Cugnet explained.
Finding human resources has been and will continue to be the main struggle for Sun Country though they are using a number of resources to both recruit and find relief for physicians still practicing in rural areas.
