One of the most important buildings in any community is the hospital or health centre.
It provides important services to residents, and it allows people to seek different types of treatment while staying close to home.
Arcola and area residents will get their chance to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the town’s health care on Oct. 4. There will be tours of the current facility at 4:15 p.m., and then at 5 p.m., beef on a bun supper and birthday cake will be served at the Arcola Curling Rink.
There will also be a brief program and a history board for people to see the centre’s rich past.
“We have some of the timelines, and that information will be set up in the rink lobby,” said Joanne Hollingshead, who has worked in the health centre in various capacities since 1974, and currently works in home care.
Between 150 and 200 people are expected to attend the anniversary bash.
Hollingshead and Enoch Pambour, the health centre’s manager, said preparations are going well for the evening.
“It looks like everything is a go,” said Hollingshead. “We have invitations ready to go. The posters are out. The food’s on order. History work is almost completed.”
The committees for setup and cleanup are in place, and the finishing touches are being applied to the program.
As part of the 90th birthday festivities, there will be a poster contest for schools on what health care means to the students. The posters will be displayed in the hallways of the hospital.
Students from neighbouring communities were encouraged to participate.
The poster contest has been very well received when it has been used for other celebrations, Hollingshead said.
“We put them on display for the public, and they were quite impressed with the quality of the work that was done,” said Hollinshead.
Pambour believes the health centre continues to be a vital service for the community.
“This is in the middle of the oilpatch, and there’s a demand for a facility like ours,” said Pambour. “We have accidents at workplaces, and this would be the best place they can come. If they were to travel to Weyburn or Estevan, it would be about an hour’s drive away.”
The health centre also serves some of the communities surrounding Arcola, including Indigenous and resort communities.
Approximately 12,600 patients access the centre each year, and it still has 24-hour physician coverage, emergency care, laboratory and x-ray services.
“There are several visiting professionals that work out of this facility as well,” said Hollingshead. “When we did one of the last changes to the facility, home care actually moved into the building as well.”
Hollingshead has seen a lot of changes over the years. When she arrived in 1974, there was an active operating room, surgical unit and obstetrics unit. The hospital performed its own sterilizing and processing. Even dentists practised there.
“We did a full scope of surgeries, and of course with time, it decreased until it was very minimal surgeries. We still continue to do outpatient surgeries, but it was an active surgical unit,” said Hollingshead.
When major changes happened with respect to sterilization and processing, the health centre had a group of staff members who were very committed, so they took courses, and continued with the process until it was removed from the smaller health centres.
The health centre used to have laundry services, but once those services stopped, the laundry would be trucked in from Regina. It came in the same vehicle as the beer for a local pub.
“There was one day when we had a beer upset and … we had to send the laundry back again because we really couldn’t use it on the patients,” said Hollingshead.
When she first arrived, the health centre was part of the Brock Union Hospital Board. Then it transitioned to being part of the Moose Mountain Health District, followed by the Sun Country Health Region and finally the Saskatchewan Health Authority.
“The bulk of the nurses from when I came here have all retired, with the exception of a few, but I hope we have mentored the staff to carry on and fill the role of service providers to the area,” said Hollingshead.
But what hasn’t changed is the care provided to patients, the commitment of the staff and the heart and soul of the facility itself.
