The opposition New Democrats have released a number of documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests about the building woes at the new Saskatchewan Hospital North Battleford.

Released by the party were documents from two separate FOI batches, one from SaskBuilds and the other from the Ministry of Health. The documents contain email correspondence among officials in both government departments related to the Sask. Hospital issues. The emails released cover the period March 13 to 21, which was a few days after the grand opening at Saskatchewan Hospital took place.

One email cited by the NDP was from March 13 sent by Jill Zimmer of the government of Saskatchewan to three government officials at 10:25 a.m.

The subject was the “SHNB – Roof Leak.” In that email she stated: “With the spring thaw, some major issues with the roof at SHNB have come to the forefront. The roof was a serious bone of contention during design and construction, and unfortunately, the Authority’s concerns were well-founded.”

In the next paragraph she wrote “I don’t have a lot of information at the moment, as the situation is still developing. What I do know is:

• The gym is currently flooded and is unavailable;

• Several occupied units are experiencing leakage issues.”

She later noted that “we are protected by the P3 contract” and that “there will be availability penalties that will be applied, and any temporary accommodations or damages to the  authority’s equipment will be covered by APP.”

In their news release, the NDP pointed to this email as an indication “that fresh problems with the roof reflected long-standing SHA concerns that had been disregarded.“

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