REGINA, Sask. — Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill is taking issue with a letter that went out Friday about the move of pediatric diabetes services from Regina to Saskatoon.
A letter that went out from the Saskatchewan Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes Program on Aug. 28 stated the Regina Pediatric Diabetes Program is unable to provide pediatric care locally and that care would be transitioned to Saskatoon. That letter was part of Saskatchewan Health Authority communications.
"This is not a change that we wanted to see happen," the letter stated, adding that "recent staffing losses and resulting challenges in maintaining the necessary resources have made it impossible to continue providing local pediatric diabetes care in Regina at this time."
At a media event in Regina Monday, Cockrill voiced his concerns about the letter.
"I will say, I was a little bit personally disappointed with the letter that went out Friday, just in the tone of its finality for patients," Cockrill said.
"If I'm one of those 150 families affected, and I've heard from many of them over the weekend, what they read in that letter is that that service will no longer be available in Regina, and that is not going to be the case. We are going to work with our teams here, work with the Saskatchewan Health Authority to make sure that we can have those services available right here to those families in southern Saskatchewan."
Cockrill acknowledged that on the pediatric endocrinology team, "we have had some challenges around physician staffing. We understand that. We're working through that. We have a plan there to get through and make sure that those services can be available in southern Saskatchewan."
As for a specific timeline on when those issues might be addressed, Cockrill said he did not want to speculate. But he added this:
"This is important to recognize that these services are not only offered by physicians. They're also offered by our nursing teams on this team as well. That's, again, why we're going to take a look for the Saskatchewan Health Authority at our nursing staffing complement on that team. Because again, for those 150 families, they don't necessarily see an endocrinologist every time they engage with that care team. There's other members of that care team that can provide those services and keep that as close to home for people as possible."
Cockrill reiterated that his message to those 150 families and other families was to "know that your government, know that the Saskatchewan Health Authority, in concert with great community partners like the Hospitals of Regina Foundation, when we are made aware of solutions, we try to find a way through that as quickly as possible."
SHA COO Derek Miller acknowledged the issue, saying its priority is "always to provide care as close to home as possible. That is our mission, and that's what we strive to do."
Miller acknowledged in this particular case "we have had some challenges in terms of coverage, specifically on the physician side with a very specific specialty. We are taking steps in order to make sure that patients are connected to appropriate care."
As for the letter that went out, Miller had this to say:
"So it's unfortunate, our communications, and I apologize for that, the communications that went out to families last week. That's not how we want to be communicating information with families, and we're taking action this week in order to address that. Again, our priority is to make sure that each of those individual patients and families are supported through this time."
