Two new doctors have been recruited by the community of Redvers with the assistance of the Sun Country Health Region (SCHR), to attend to the residents of Redvers and area.
Dr. Lettie Kgobisa will arrive in Redvers in the first week of August. She is moving from Saskatoon. Dr. Milly Hlatshwayo will arrive later in the year, pending approval from Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
Once both doctors are in place, SCHR and the physicians will determine when there is enough physician manpower to re-open the inpatient and emergency departments at Redvers Health Centre. Those services were closed at the end of 2009 when a previous family physician left the community.
SCHR is confident that with the arrival of Kgobisa, primary health services will resume at the clinic and to long-term care residents of Redvers.
At this time, residents will still need to travel to other centres for emergency services. With the re-opening of the emergency department at Arcola Health Centre, that site is also an option.
"We must have enough physicians to provide sustainable 24-hour on-call coverage to re-open the emergency department," said Marga Cugnet, Vice-president Primary and Integrated Health. "It is not feasible to expect one physician to cover a 24-hour-a-day emergency department."
Two other communities will see an improvement in physician availability as a result of the physicians who are moving to the Arcola area. The doctors in Arcola will provide a physician clinic at the Lampman Health Centre each Tuesday, beginning August 3.
They are also providing clinic services two days each week at the Stoughton Health Clinic.
