By Angela Hill

Health region prepares surgical team

Mar 23, 2011 | 6:34 AM

A new surgical team for Victoria Hospital is being assembled using funding from the provincial government.

The Prince Albert Parkland Health Region has learned their share of a recent surgical funding announcement from the Saskatchewan Government and they are pleased with what they are receiving.

“We see this being very focused on supporting our patients, with improved staffing in a variety of areas,” said Cecile Hunt, CEO of the region.

The funds are targeted towards the fourth operating room being renovated in Victoria Hospital.

It will support surgical targets by getting the surgical team assembled, which includes doctors, nurses, housekeeping, biomedical, sterilization, homecare and other support areas.

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“All of these pieces and folks are part of the surgical team, no one group provides all of this care in an isolated fashion,” Hunt said.

There will be some hiring, but the details have yet to be completely finalized, she said.

She said staff hopes the renovations will completed sometime next month.

“We’re very focused, our maintenance staff and other staff, are very focused in being ready to implement the fourth operating room as quickly as possible.”

Once operational, the room will allow the region to perform an additional 500 day surgeries and 37 in-patient surgeries annually, taking the region total to 5,657 surgeries a year.

Hunt said this is a multi-year initiative — the first goal is having no patients waiting more than 18 months for surgery by March 2011. The second goal is to reduce all surgical wait times to less than 12 months and finally to have all surgeries taking place within three months by March 2014.

Provided the region can meet their targets, Hunt said she is confident the funding will continue into the future.

“We need to deliver on our surgical targets and if we meet our targets it’s anticipated that those dollars will be added to our base going forward,” she said.

ahill@panow.com