Sask. families happy province has hired new pediatric gastroenterologist after almost 1.5 years without
CBC
Sarah Turnbull says the wait for her five-year-old daughter to see a pediatric gastroenterologist in her home province was going to be six years, then seemed like it might be endless after Saskatchewan's only doctor in that specialty left last year. Now there is some relief, as the province has recruited one of the specialists.
There were two pediatric gastroenterologists in the province when Turnbull's daughter Blake was first added to the waitlist. Then one moved on.
Turnbull relied on parent groups and the internet to treat her daughter as they waited to meet Dr. Simone Nicol, the remaining one, but on May 12, 2023, Nicol closed her practice in Saskatchewan.
The province has been without a pediatric gastroenterologist since then. Turnbull, a single mother of two, had to travel to Edmonton to seek care for Blake, who underwent a bowel and bladder surgery for almost eight hours last April.
"Then we had to go back almost four to five times for the recovery, sometimes very emergently. One time last year we got back from Edmonton and within six hours we had to turn around and go back," she said.
"It was very discouraging to know that there was no point going to the ER in Regina or Saskatoon.… It was super scary for so many parents out here with children with these chronic conditions and being told that those services just aren't offered."
On Tuesday morning at a news conference in Saskatoon, the provincial Ministry of Health announced that Dr. Rabin Persad, an experienced pediatric gastroenterologist with an established practice in Edmonton, will begin practising at the Jim Pattison Children's Hospital (JPCH) in Saskatoon on Oct. 1.
"Families in our province will now have access to specialized pediatric gastroenterology services much closer to home, and we know that many families have had to travel significant distances for these specialized services," Health Minister Everett Hindley said.
"His involvement will also support the ongoing developments of a comprehensive children's gastroenterology program for Saskatchewan and improve access to specialist care here in our province."
Hindley said the government has spent nearly $3 million over the past two budgets to build a comprehensive multidisciplinary pediatric gastroenterology program for the province.
He said this recruitment is a "significant moment" and that the province will aggressively keep recruiting "an appropriate number" to further facilitate the program.
"This work must continue," Hindley said. "We continue to actively recruit additional specialist health-care providers in pediatric gastroenterology and other fields."
Persad said he is privileged to join the growing team at JPCH.
"Yes, there's been some troubled times," Persad said. "Hopefully as we move forward we'd see the end of those troubled times."
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