According to the Sun Country Health Region, the issue was left open, but Estevan Mayor Gary St. Onge figures it isn't open to any further discussion at all.
"I"m sure we're not doing it," St. Onge said on Jan. 26 when asked if the City of Estevan was going to contribute $50,000 toward the purchase of a new road ambulance to serve the southeast sector. Marga Cugnet, Sun Country's interim chief executive officer, said the letter requesting Estevan's participation in the fundraising effort went out and the response they received from the City "left it open."
But that's not the way St. Onge sees it.
"Not unless something changes around the council table. We spent about $180,000 from the City last year on health-related matters and we'll be spending even more than that in 2012. We might have considered it if we hadn't already done so much," the mayor added.
St. Onge said that physician recruitment efforts have gobbled up a good portion of the additional property tax levy for health-care items.
"We're going into next fall with a special levy for doctor recruitment. We've already done it for awhile so we'll do an assessment to see if we're doing any good with it. Then the half-mill in the future can go towards getting a new nursing home in Estevan."
Greg Hoffort, executive director for St. Joseph's Hospital, said there are four ambulances dispatched from Estevan to serve the city and immediate surrounding area and Sun Country was wanting to replace one of them at this point, probably the oldest one or one with the highest number of registered miles on it.
Cugnet said that a new ambulance costs about $115,000, so the request of $50,000 from the City was based on that since it will be used mainly within the city and the immediate area. She wasn't certain if the RM of Estevan was going to contribute anything to the purchase price. She said the amount the health region receives from the province for capital spending is miniscule, so the region has to do a lot of cost-sharing to replace aging equipment.
As for other medical equipment, it was reported that a new radiology imaging unit is going into the Weyburn General Hospital to replace an older unit at a cost of up to $170,000 with the funding coming from the provincial government.
Hoffort said St. Joseph's has updated radiology equipment that is about four years old and they also have a relatively new C-arm X-ray unit in use plus newly installed ultra-sound imaging.
"We're just lacking the one thing in imaging and that's the CT scanner and so far, no word on that at all," Hoffort said. "We'll just have to keep on asking when it will become a reality for this hospital."
