The Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital (JPCH) will officially open to patients Sept. 29, Premier Scott Moe announced Thursday.

Blake Wheeler, Saskatchewan’s 2019 Champion Child, is especially thrilled. He represents sick and injured kids across the province and helped to cut the ribbon on the new hospital.

"I am so excited for the kids of Saskatchewan to have this new facility when and if they need it," he said at a news conference.

The new hospital will feature something particularly exciting for mothers-to-be: single-room maternity care.

Of the 176 rooms in the hospital, the Maternal Care Centre will have 65 of them.

Single-room maternity care is a model of care where the woman stays in the room from the time she goes into labour until the time she leaves the hospital.

"The advantage of this is that it prevents us from having to move patients around at different parts of their labour and birth experience, but also that it allows the family to be located in one room and have all medical and nursing services come to her in her space," said Dr. Jocelyne Martel, area lead for obstetrics for Saskatoon in the Saskatchewan Health Authority.

Martel said, to her knowledge, JPCH will be the only hospital in Canada where single-room care is the only model of maternity care – compared to other hospitals that have a combination of single-room and multiple occupancy rooms.

"It’s more the fact that we don’t have to move the mother around. Let the service come to the mother where she is," she said.

"In our current state, women labour and birth in one room and then get moved to another room, which is often a public room … all rooms are private rooms and that has been a very important part of the first hours of life in a family when a newborn is present, to be able to have that private and quiet time together," she said.

Once the hospital opens, pediatric and maternal inpatients will move in from Royal University Hospital and new admissions will be accepted.

"It most truly is a monumental day for our province and is a day where I think we can celebrate," Moe said.

The JCPH's features include:

  • 176 private patient rooms
  • 50 designated family spaces
  • A 2,800-square foot therapeutic play area.
  • Six individual treatment rooms for chemotherapy and other infusion treatments
  • Two fun rooms and an outdoor play area
  • Saskatchewan's first ever dedicated pediatric Sleep Lab

"I truly believe that hope lives here," Moe said.