It was a sparse crowd of fewer than 20 people, some of them employees of the Sun Country Health Region, but the questions and conversation flowed easily at the annual public Community Network meeting in Estevan’s St. Joseph’s Hospital auditorium Monday night.
The community connection, where the board and administration of Sun Country comes to the communities to confer and deliver health care information, allows representatives from nearby rural municipalities, villages, towns and cities to discuss matters of importance with the health care leaders. A similar session had been held earlier in Coronach, said Sun Country board member Derrill Rodine, who chaired the Estevan session.
Sun Country’s CEO Marga Cugnet was front and centre for a good portion of the opening presentations, delivering information and then fielding questions in the second half of the two-hour meeting.
Those registering for the session also heard from John Knoch, vice-president corporate and finance; Janice Giroux, vice-president of community health and Sheena Grimes, interim regional director of primary health care.
Cugnet, Knoch and Giroux took the audience through a review of the health region’s four major targets that had been set for 2015-16, noting that in some instances, the goal had not been reached, but progress was being made.
The targets included prevention of staff injuries, which had been reduced by 50 per cent in terms of Workers’ Compensation Board claims (down from 146 to 73) and a “stop the line” safety alert system that was close to its target of 100 per cent, zeroing in at about 90 per cent, said Knoch.
The antimicrobial stewardship section (appropriate use of antibiotics) was seeing a 75 per cent compliance rate and on target with proper documentation, dosages and orders being set within the physician, nursing and pharmacy staff.
The hand hygiene and high touch area cleaning section was an on-going issue with increasing compliance which is now around 85 per cent, said Cugnet.
Giroux addressed matters concerning mental health and addictions services and steps being taken to increase not only the service, but also improvements to the wait times for primary mental health needs, referring to a pilot program in Weyburn as a new standard of practice.
It was noted that Sun Country now had a full complement of psychiatrists with three now serving the region.
Cugnet reported that improvements made to the long term care programs and placement streams, now show that, on average, it takes only 11 days from assessment to placement in a regional long term care facility, which opens up more hospital beds for surgery and acute care patients.
The computed tomography (CT) scanning service in Estevan which started on Feb. 22, has already provided 186 scanning examinations for 159 patients, meaning the scanner and technicians are handling about a dozen patients per day with two spots left open daily for emergent needs. There is currently no waiting list for CT scans in Estevan. The radiologists have also provided two, on-site training sessions. There are currently two trained technicians doing the screening on a Monday to Friday schedule and three more technicians are expected to be trained and readied for practical work within a month, which will allow the local service to provide 24-hour on call service as well as the daily
schedules.
Chronic disease and primary health care management was outlined by Grimes who focused on such items as increasing efficiencies in treating and then self-management when it came to such items as diabetes, obesity and pulmonary care. She said clinical teams have lessened the load on patients and other staff members with educational programs and regular checks and balances to uncover errors or changes in conditions.
Several questions from the floor regarding emergency medical technicians, responders and their pay scales and accessibility in more remote area, long term care housing, medical referrals being made to Regina rather than to Sun Country, possible provincial cuts being made to regional health boards and plans for a new hospital in Weyburn were made.
