Five Hills Health Region board members received updates on the new Moose Jaw regional hospital project, physician recruitment and the region’s family practice residency program at a meeting Sept. 19.
The meeting was the board’s first following its summer break, and began with a report from John Liguori, serving as executive director for the hospital project.
Construction on the facility is expected to begin next year; its completion is anticipated in 2015 at a total cost of $104 million. Liguori reported on the progress of the Integrated Lean Project Delivery Team tasked with designing the hospital, and also discussed a validation study that will be presented to the provincial health ministry in late September.
“The validation study will confirm that our project can be delivered for the scope, timeline and budget approved,” Liguori stated. “Once (it) has been approved, we can begin early preparatory work on the site and move onto finalizing the design and preparing for construction to start early in 2013.”
Health region CEO Cheryl Craig presented an update on physical recruitment, noting that two family physicians and two emergency room physicians will be added in Moose Jaw in the near future.
With the latter two additions, expected in October, the emergency room at Moose Jaw Union Hospital will be fully staffed. Kyle Matthies, director of communications for the health region, said Five Hills would likely need to recruit three or four more family physicians to reach full capacity.
A new physician is also expected to begin practising in Assiniboia in December after completing the Saskatchewan International Physician Practice Assessment. Another will serve the town during a one-month locum in January, after which he will decide whether or not to practise there on a long-term basis.
For more information, see Friday's edition of the Times-Herald.
