Wednesday, January 24, 2018
Issue 38
SERVING THE ENERGY CITY SINCE 1903
www.estevanmercury.ca
Mailing No. 10769 | Publication No. 40069240
City didn’t get necessary insurance for Civic By David Willberg dwillberg@estevanmercury.ca
Mayor Roy Ludwig and Fire Chef Dale Feser participate in the hose uncoupling during the grand opening for the new fire hall.
Community celebrates new fire hall grand opening By William Acri wacri@estevanmercury.ca
The Estevan Fire Rescue Service celebrated the move into its new fire hall building on Saturday with a grand opening that included speeches, ceremonies and tours of the building. A large crowd of more than 200 invited guests and members of the public showed up for the event. The fire department moved into its new home in mid-November. Many from the Estevan Fire Department do not miss the old one, with its lack of space and troublesome setup for moving around the bigger fire trucks. The new fire hall, which was the former Murray GM dealership on 13th Avenue, has become a beacon of hope for many small communities around Canada looking to have a new fire hall without spending a lot of money. The repurposed dealership has gone over extremely well with a large amount of people in the community helping out in any way they could to get the fire hall fully operational. “In today’s economic environment, when you take a look at new buildings versus repur-
posing an older one, it is more favourable economically to not build a new fire hall. We saved a lot of money and for a fraction of a cost of building a new fire hall,” said Fire Chief Dale Feser. Feser says he is looking forward to other improvements to the fire hall such as a training facility that are set to happen within the next few years. “The thing I miss the least about the old fire hall is the location and accessibility for our large trucks. It is difficult of them to leave quickly with the narrow streets that were apart of the old fire hall,” said Feser. “Having access to two main road ways on either side of this fire hall is going to increase our response time and that will go a long way in helping the community,” he added. The grand opening started off with speeches from Feser, Estevan Church of God pastor Geoff Thiessen, Cannington MLA Dan D’Autremont, Souris-Moose Mountain MP Robert Kitchen and Mayor Roy Ludwig. They all had wonderful words to say for Estevan’s new fire hall. Thiessen blessed the new fire hall with prayers of hope that the firefighters and those
Fire Chief Dale Feser delivers an impassioned speech about the importance of having a good fire hall in Estevan while thanking the many community members who donated their time and effort to make the new fire hall a reality. in need of the fire service will not perish. Past fire chief Rick Perry was not able to attend the opening, but deputy fire chief Rick Davies read a letter that was penned by Perry. After the speeches people were invited outside where the famous uncoupling of the grand opening fire hose was done by Feser and Ludwig. Once the hose was uncoupled, vari-
ous dignitaries and community members pushed fire engine No. 1-8 into one of the truck bays. Everyone was invited back inside where Feser and Ludwig cut the first piece of the fire hall cake and started to pass out slices to attendees. The Kinsmen also passed out pieces of cake and were credited with helping out with the fire hall renovations. A2 »FORMER
St. Joseph’s Hospital continues to experience physician shortage In response to our community’s needs and as a result of the physician shortage in Estevan, St. Joseph’s Hospital and the Estevan physicians have announced that there will be a physician stationed in the emergency department of St. Joseph’s Hospital from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. from Monday to Friday. This temporary measure is in addition to the emergency room coverage provided by the physicians on a 24-hour emergency basis. This additional coverage does not include weekends. Regular emergency coverage will be provided on weekends. In addition additional nursing and patient registration staff
will also be added during this time. The goal of this initiative is to allow those, unable to secure timely access to a family physician, an opportunity to see a physician more quickly. “While we recognize that this situation is less than ideal, we are taking these measures to help with the present situation and St. Joseph’s Hospital is continuing to recruit physicians to meet the long term needs of our community,” said St. Joseph’s Hospital CEO Greg Hoffort. Hoffort commended the present physicians and hospital staff for their extraordinary efforts during this challenging time.
St. Joseph’s Hospital continues to recruit physicians during the present physician shortage. “We are in discussions with five physicians, and our efforts have yielded some medium to long term success, with a few physicians slated to arrive in April, and our efforts will continue,” said Hoffort. St. Joseph’s Hospital has two physicians in the Saskatchewan physician assessment program and upon completion will be able to commence practice in April. Additionally one physician from the U.K. has agreed to a site visit in February with a view to an April start date as well.
The city of Estevan is about to begin the decommissioning process for the Civic Auditorium. Estevan city council found out on Jan. 15 that it would not receive the necessary insurance coverage. An announcement was made the following morning. Mayor Roy Ludwig said he was surprised that the Civic did not receive the necessary insurance, but the insurance carrier described the Civic as “a substandard, non-traditional risk, and therefore it would not insure.” Due to the condition of the building, Ludwig said the insurance provider deemed it to be a risk to reopen. Ludwig said the insurance provider would not provide any type of insurance, including liability insurance. The city wanted to maintain the level of insurance it had in the past. “We asked our carrier, JLT (Group), and after we gave them both of the engineering reports, and what we had planned to do, obviously they took the time to pour over that, because it was 2 1/2 or three weeks before they got back and basically said ‘We feel this is a substandard building,’ and they’re not interested in insuring it by the end of the month.” Those two engineering reports included the initial report from WSP Group, which came in on Nov. 6 and led to the closure of the 60-year-old arena the following day. A local private group sought a second opinion, which arrived in early December. Its findings led council to approve reopening the arena, as long as it received adequate insurance. While he was optimistic the Civic would receive the necessary insurance, Ludwig said other members of council were not as hopeful. And the longer council had to wait, the more concerned council was that insurance wouldn’t come through. The insurance company said they would cover until Jan. 24, but that would only be with the understanding that the Civic remains closed, and they would not insure the building any further. JLT has the insurance for all of the city’s buildings, including city hall, leisure services buildings, public works buildings and more. Ludwig said the local insurance broker has approached three other insurance companies to see if they would provide coverage for the Civic, as well as the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association’s SUMAssure. The three insurance companies said they wouldn’t provide A2 » INSURANCE
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