By battlefordsNOW

The end of the Prairie North Health Region

Jan 6, 2017 | 12:00 AM

With the announcement to unify health authorities throughout the province, the days of the Prairie North Health Region (PNHR) are numbered, at least under that name.

Covering areas like the Battlefords, Meadow Lake and Lloydminster, PNHR employs roughly 3,300 people under its umbrella, and now some of those employees might have to be worried about their futures as the health regions merge into one.

The CEO of PNHR, David Fan, said the decision to unify didn’t come as a surprise to him.

“I think along the way there have been many signals pointing in that direction, and keeping in mind the trend across the country. Different provinces have gone to fewer health regions and even down to one single health region for quite some time now,” Fan said, pointing to examples like Alberta, Nova Scotia and PEI.

“So what does it mean for us in Prairie North? I think one piece of the puzzle is now in place, meaning that within the year Prairie North will no longer exist as we have to know for the last 15 years,” he said.

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Even with the big changes coming this way, Fan, along with many others, believes service and care won’t be too swayed. He said the focus on certain aspects of health in different areas, such as mental health and suicide support in northern regions, will continue as they’re needed.

“Those services continue to be needed and must be provided. So regardless of what governance and corporate structure is going to look like a year for now, the need for those services do not change and we need to continue to provide them the best we can,” he said. Fan also reassured that projects that have been started won’t be tossed aside, and will continue as health care support continues.

“It’s fair to say that we have budgeted for those capital projects, be they minor renovations or significant capital upgrades or a total facility redevelopment, such as with the Saskatchewan Hospital,” he said. “Those projects continue once they are planned and budgeted for — we need to continue to execute them. Anything new, to be fair, I assume would be subject to a different scrutiny, a different review process. I can’t speak to anything new, but all existing projects will continue to be done and to be completed, hopefully on time and on budget.”

There are some worries, however, especially from the union group with the health region, CUPE. The union released a statement on the healthcare announcement, expressing their concern with the restructuring and how it might affect their jobs and the health care they’re expected to provide.

“Reorganization will cause significant disruption to the whole health system and distract from the main purpose of the health care system: providing quality care to patients and resident,” president of CUPE Health Care Council Gordon Campbell said in a release. “We are concerned that one central super board will be less responsive and harder to navigate for patients and communities.”

To that, Fan said that only time can tell, and he’s hoping for the best.

“There’s always a concern when you create a huge, single, provincial organization. Does it mean it becomes more inaccessible and more disconnected to the local communities? That is a concern and I think their mechanism being suggested to breach that gap is to maintain some sort of connectivity between local communities and the single board. I guess time will tell how that will work and whether it will be effective or not,” Fan said.

Katherine Svenkeson is a reporter for battlefordsNOW.com. She can be reached at katherine.svenkeson@jpbg.ca or @ksvenkeson on twitter.