Saskatoon nurses reporting 'inhumane' conditions at Royal University Hospital

Some nurses are describing the situation at Royal University Hospital as “inhumane,” with dozens of patients waiting to be admitted, according to the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses (SUN).

On Wednesday, the union took to X saying RUH was close to a “catastrophic state” with 80 patients waiting to be admitted.

SUN president Tracy Zambory said about one in 10 of those patients were experiencing a mental health crisis, and three of them waited a combined total of 120 hours.

“That's what inhumane is, not getting people moved over to Dubé as they need to,” Zambory told CTV News on Thursday.

Last week, emergency room nurses at St. Paul’s Hospital called to “stop the line” because of extreme overcrowding. Zambory said it’s becoming normal for emergency rooms to have overcapacity issues, but it shouldn’t be.

“When calling the fire marshal is one of the only solutions that registered nurses can think of to try and get patient flow happening, we have a problem,” she said.

Zambory said overcrowding is not an issue created in the emergency room, but rather a sign of a failing system. She said more people are relying on emergency rooms because the shortage of doctors and nurses.

“The emergency room is the signal that we have problems,” she said.

The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) said it’s working with the Ministry of Health and health care workers to implement “systemic change” to address capacity issues.

“We’re taking targeted measures to ensure we’re building not only hospital capacity, but community capacity,” SHA Chief Operating Officer Derek Miller said in a press release.

“We acknowledge that our health system continues to experience difficult and varied capacity challenges.”

Since releasing the Saskatoon Capacity Pressure Action Plan in November 2023, SHA said it added 43 acute care beds and three ICU beds to RUH, five acute care beds to St. Paul’s Hospital and 32 transitional beds in the city.