St. Joseph's Hospital is in a better position to help Estevan and area residents thanks to a significant new purchase.
The hospital announced on Thursday it has purchased two new anesthetic machines for its operating rooms. While unveiling the new equipment to local media, it was noted the machines cost $200,000. Of that total, $110,000 was provided to the hospital by the Sun Country Health Region through the provincial Surgical Initiative Program while $90,000 came from the St. Joseph's Hospital Foundation.
Greg Hoffort, the executive director of St. Joe's, said the addition of the machines is a huge step forward in outfitting their surgical suites for the future.
"We have a very talented team at St. Joseph's and it is important to furnish them with state of the art equipment such as we have here today," said Hoffort who added the purchase would not have been made without the co-operation of all three groups.
Dr. Medhi Horri, who is the anesthetist at St. Joe's, said he is thrilled to have the new equipment to work with and commended all involved for their efforts.
"This was really urgent, this was really needed and I really appreciate the people who really worked fast and dealt with the people they needed to deal with to make this happen," he said. "It makes my job easier and it makes it way safer for the patients."
Horri added that along with making things safer for patients, the new machines will also expand the services St. Joseph's is able to provide to the community.
"We can do more extensive procedures, more complicated ones. Our ORs have the capacity to do better surgeries compared to Weyburn because of the nature and structure of the rooms. But we didn't have the devices to go with it, now we have it.
"There is a chance that a surgeon can come here to do procedures - an orthopedic surgeon or other specialists in general surgery - and we are capable of providing anesthesia for those procedures. This means the patient does not have to travel for two hours to have a procedure that can be done here at home, we can look after them post op and they are close to home and families can come visit them and they can be released faster."
Horri said the equipment should also help Estevan in its never ending battle to recruit physicians to the city.
Sun Country CEO Marga Cugnet, who was on hand for Thursday's unveiling, concurred with Horri's comments on the impact the equipment will have with regards to recruitment.
"When physicians come down or specialists come down and look at the facilities, they certainly always look at what type of equipment, what's available and what they are used to working on," said Cugnet who added the equipment will also provide Sun Country with some synergies between St. Joseph's and the Weyburn General Hospital.
"They are operating similar equipment so they are familiar with it. The same with our operating room nurses."
