Lloydminster Hospital’s laboratory outpatient services were unavailable for four days this week, and the Saskatchewan Health Authority will not confirm or deny that staffing is the cause.
A notice posted at the hospital listed the outpatient lab closure for July 20, 21, today and tomorrow. Patients needing bloodwork or other outpatient lab testing were directed to Alberta Precision Laboratories at 4402 52 Avenue in Lloydminster instead.
BorderPulse asked the SHA directly on July 22 whether staffing was behind the closure. The health authority was also asked what the province is doing right now, not in a long-term plan, to fix the problem for Lloydminster residents.
The SHA responded with a prepared statement.
“The Saskatchewan Health Authority remains committed to providing high quality, accessible health care services to the people of Lloydminster and area,” the statement said. “The SHA makes every effort to ensure laboratory services remain available to the community.”
The statement confirmed the closure applied to July 23 and 24, two of the four days listed on the hospital notice. It said staff are working to make sure chemotherapy patients, pre-operative patients and anyone with a previously booked lab appointment will still be seen.
The SHA did not answer whether staffing caused the interruption. It also did not deny it.
What the health assessment already found
BorderPulse has reported extensively on the Lloydminster Health Service Needs Assessment, a 261-page report on the region’s health system obtained through a confidential source after the province denied it under a freedom of information request.
The assessment describes the hospital laboratory as a department already stretched beyond what it was built for.
“The Lloydminster Hospital laboratory was not designed or resourced to function as a community outpatient collection site, yet it has increasingly assumed this role,” the assessment states. “Outpatient demand, particularly from Saskatchewan residents, has grown significantly, overwhelming both staff capacity and infrastructure.”
Annual laboratory orders at the hospital grew 13 per cent between 2019-20 and 2024-25, rising from about 468,000 to about 529,000. Outpatient testing demand alone grew 20 per cent over that same period.
The assessment also identifies a recruitment problem specific to the hospital’s location on the Saskatchewan side of the border.
“Laboratory staff wages in Saskatchewan are lower than in Alberta,” the assessment notes, describing a “persistent disadvantage in attracting and retaining qualified staff, especially in a border city where Alberta positions are often seen as more competitive.”
Two systems, one patient
The assessment says Saskatchewan residents rely on the hospital lab instead of the nearby Alberta Precision Laboratories site partly because results from the Alberta lab do not appear in Saskatchewan’s electronic health record system. Patients who want their Saskatchewan doctor to see the results go to the hospital lab, regardless of what that lab was designed to handle.
That is the same Alberta Precision Laboratories site the SHA pointed patients to this week during the outpatient closure.
What happens now
The SHA has not said when the outpatient lab service will return to full operation, or whether more interruptions are planned. BorderPulse has asked for that information and will update this story if it is provided.
For now, Lloydminster residents needing outpatient bloodwork have one option inside city limits: cross the border to the Alberta lab the assessment says exists in a system that cannot talk to the one on the Saskatchewan side.
Read more: Lloydminster Health Assessment: 10 – Testing stretched to limits
There is a pretty easy solution, if the two provinces went on the same computer system. Having access to results no matter which province the testing was done.