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Facility repairs assessed

The Sun Country Regional Health Authority will be looking at their priority list for capital projects, after going through the facility assessment reports issued for all health care facilities province-wide.



The Sun Country Regional Health Authority will be looking at their priority list for capital projects, after going through the facility assessment reports issued for all health care facilities province-wide.

The Vanderwiel Facility Assessments, or VFA report, assesses how much is needed to be repaired at every facility in Sun Country owned by the health region, giving both a facility cost rating and facility cost repairs, as well as the replacement cost of each facility.

For all facilities in Sun Country, the total amount it would cost to do all repairs right now would be $163,375,437, but of that amount, just over half, or $82,664,310 is for the Willowdale Lodge in Kipling. Taking that out, all other facilities repairs total $80,711,127.

Just for Weyburn-based facilities, the estimated total of repair costs is $31,214,062.

John Knoch, vice-president of corporate and financial affairs, said these are the estimated costs, not the actual costs, which won't be known until projects are put to tender.

"We've established a 10 to 20-year capital plan where we've identified the areas or facilities where we would say these are the priorities, and use the information for the list," he said.

Health minister and MLA Dustin Duncan said for the ministry, the VFA assessment is just one of several tools that they would use to determine where capital dollars should go in the province, and he noted it doesn't include some information like capacity and patient flow, which are also factors they would need to determine where to put funds.

The capital plan also needs to reflect what the current reality is for each facility, where the VFA assessment gives a dollar breakdown of what repairs are needed at the time the report was issued.

Broken down, this includes the Weyburn General Hospital ($12,380,458); Weyburn Special Care Home ($7,509,022); Weyburn Community Health Services building ($6,136,154); Tatagwa View long-term care centre ($4,608,652); Weyburn Ambulance ($237,140); maintenance storage building ($24,951); and Sun Country's maintenance headquarters building ($317,685).

Knoch said for Sun Country, when they look at a number like $12.4 million for the hospital, one of the factors the region takes into consideration is that they have an active request in to Sask. Health to replace the hospital with a new acute-care facility in Weyburn, for which the Weyburn Hospital Foundation is fundraising towards.

Also, for another facility not being replaced, they would consider which are the most important aspects of the facility or equipment that needs replacing; if there are costs for equipment that the board considers redundant, based on the use or role of the facility, that may also be a factor in how much work is done at a given facility.

"Some services may be very urgent and need replacing right away; sometimes if you do a good patch job, you can get by for a few years. We still need to be the ones that make the decision to fix what we have money for," said Knoch. "Our priorities would influence the ministry as to what they might fund, but the ministry looks at the entire province, and we work closely with the ministry on that."

In addition, when Sun Country does put together their priority list, the ministry may have a new priority or initiative in regard to services and will put in funds for projects related to that, said Knoch.

Looking at some of the facilities in the Weyburn region, they were also assessed for repair costs. The Fillmore Union Health Centre has need for an estimated $3.78 million in repairs; the Pangman Health Centre needs $1.13 million in repairs; in Stoughton, the ambulance garage needs $37,790 in repairs, and the Newhope Pioneer Lodge $2,301,468; and in Midale, the Mainprize Manor long-term care centre requires $1,070,799 in repairs, and the site utility garage and storage building needs $5,796 in repairs.