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The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) said a technical issue is what led to its HealthLine 811 number being shut down for just over 30 minutes on Saturday.
The SHA said in a statement on Monday afternoon that from 4:55 p.m.until 5:35 p.m, on Feb. 22 the line was down. It noted the 811 outage did not impact access to emergency services.
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HealthLine 811 is used to help people seeking advice on whether they should go to an emergency department, and is also used for people seeking mental health and addictions advice. It is staffed by experienced and specially trained Registered Nurses, Registered Psychiatric Nurses, and Registered Social Workers.
Saskatchewan NDP wasn’t happy to hear about the line going down.
Health critic Vicki Mowat said for some people the line is used as a last resort.
“We know it’s a well utilized line and it’s important that people have access to it,” Mowat said.
“It’s simply unacceptable that it was down this weekend. On Saturday, your options look a lot like waiting the longest wait times in Canada by going to an emergency room or calling 811 first to find out whether an emergency room trip is necessary.”
Mowat said last year over 100,000 calls were made to HealthLine 811.
Health minister Jeremy Cockrill said he was aware of the outage and said he and the SHA were working to better understand what went wrong.
“We haven’t gotten a summary on what the specific outage was. In a world that’s increasingly virtual, 811 is a pretty significant part of our health-care system now. We’ll be working with the SHA to understand what we maybe missed,” Cockrill said.
“We have seen a pattern of behaviour from this government of really concerning health-care closures, and this is one closure in a long line of closures that we’ve seen over the past month,” Mowat said.
“We’re really concerned to hear that Saskatoon City Hospital’s emergency room has had to reduce its hours this month as well.”
On Feb 14, the SHA said the ER hours at City Hospital would be reduced from Feb. 15 to Feb. 23, “based on physician availability” and then on Feb. 21 said the reduced hours would extended until March 2 for the same reason.
The SHA said the hospital’s emergency department, usually open from 9 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., would close at 6 p.m. on those dates, and also said people could use the 811 service if they needed help.
Other items added to the list of closures according to the NDP is nursing services lacking in Beauval, emergency room closures in Porcupine Plain and Tisdale, and Lloydminister’s CT scanner repeatedly shutting down because of a lack of staff.
Mowat reiterated that whatever plan the government has right now isn’t working.
“We see a consistent failure of this government to adequately recruit and retain healthcare workers, a failed plan that’s not working, that’s leading to more and more closures. The time to act is now,” she said.
— with files from CKOM News
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