Paramedics were called to the Lighthouse in Saskatoon over 400 times last year.
The Saskatoon Health Region and MD Ambulance, combined with Lighthouse Supported Living in the city’s downtown, are hoping a new six-month pilot project will reduce those calls and decrease visits to hospital emergency departments.
“For us to cut down the number of responses here, to cut down the number of patients vising the ER is tremendous,” said MD Ambulance spokesperson Troy Davies during a press conference at the Lighthouse Tuesday.
“We will see a huge benefit of that down the road.”
The project calls for a paramedic to be stationed at the Lighthouse 12 hours a day, seven days a week as well as the expansion of several Lighthouse services.
The number of beds dedicated to clients with complex mental health needs will increase to 17 from 9. The stabilization unit, which provides emergency shelter to clients under the influence of drugs and alcohol from 4 p.m. to 8 a.m., will expand to 24-hour service. The mobile outreach vehicle — a retrofitted ambulance that transports people in need of shelter from the streets to the Lighthouse — will run 16 hours a day instead of its current six.
“The impact of the investments will be quite immense. We’ve known for a long time that we’ve needed to make some investments here at the Lighthouse to support people who are struggling with mental health and addictions,” said Tracy Muggli, the health region’s director of mental health and addiction services.
The goal of the project is to decrease emergency calls to the Lighthouse as well as reduce the number of patients transported to hospital emergency rooms across the city.
The health region expects the project, which also includes more support staff and the hiring of an addictions counsellor and care aide, to cost just over $500,000.
“We believe that some of the funding will transition itself because we won’t need to pay as much overtime as in the past, because we have resources in the right place,” said Muggli.
The project will be reviewed after six months.
The idea resulted from the health region’s recent 14-day challenge, which concluded Monday.
The challenge — dubbed The Better Every Day 14-Day Challenge — was posed by region president and CEO Dan Florizone. He called for the region to halt regular activities in order to tackle overcapacity issues in the city’s hospitals.
