By Chris Jaster

For 10 years Lorne Rygh has been fighting for a new hospital in Kipling and he sees very little in the recent provincial budget to help the town replace and 60 year old structure.

The budget allows $100 million to be spent on upgrading and building new hospitals throughout the province, an area the Saskatchewan Party had not closely looked at prior to taking office. Unfortunately for Kipling, the government doesn’t seem like it will be investing a lot of capital in new buildings this year.

“Some of (the $100 million) will go towards maybe building newer hospitals or adding on to hospitals, but the lion’s share of it will go towards maintaining the infrastructure that we have. First of all we need to secure the infrastructure we have before we put a lot of money into building it.” said Health Minister Don McMorris about his party’s 10 year capital spending plan.

But Rygh, the secretary of the Kipling District Health Foundation, doesn’t think the government understands when to make repairs and how bad the situation in Kipling is.

“We had to get buckets out when it rained,” he said. “It took a long time to repair the roof and it still leaked (when the snow) thawed this spring, nearly shorting out the entire electrical system.”

According to Rygh, the proposal to build a new Kipling hospital, which would combine acute and long term care, would cost the government less than $4 million. He doesn’t view this as a lot of money, and he knows it will help relieve some pressure off the long term care facilities in the area that also need to be replaced.

Rygh outlined all of this in a Feb. 20 meeting he had with McMorris in Regina where Rygh left documents behind outlining the situation and requested McMorris appoint someone to visit the hospital, a request that’s been ignored for the last two years under the NDP.

Unfortunately for the town, McMorris said he “doesn’t know if (he’s) seen a formal proposal through the health authority or if the ministry has it for sure.” He just recommended the town to talk to the health authority and to keep lobbying.

Rygh doesn’t understand McMorris’ remarks as he received a letter from the health minister’s office after the meeting. Rygh has also been working with the Sun Country Health Authority meeting by meeting for a new hospital and he knows it’s high on the authority’s list for a new facility.

“If they aren’t aware of our problem, they haven’t done much homework,” Rygh said. “They just have to read the information I left on Feb. 20.”