Dr. Daniel Irvine has been practicing medicine in La Ronge for the last seven years. (Submitted photo/Daniel Irvine)

By Derek Cornet

big accomplishment

Irvine awarded 2024 Emergency Physician of the Year

May 25, 2024 | 8:00 AM

Dr. Daniel Irvine is the recipient of the 2024 Emergency Physician of the Year (Prairies Rural, Remote, Small Urban) award from the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians.

“It was an honour for sure,” he said.

“There is a lot of positions that work really hard amongst many different emergency departments across the Prairies, so it was an honour to be nominated and even more of an honour to get the award.”

Irvine is a long-time resident of La Ronge and was a graduate of Churchill Community High School in 2003. He finished his family physician residency in 2015 and moved back to La Ronge seven years ago. Irvine spent some time living in British Columbia, but he felt a need to return to northern Saskatchewan.

“I feel a really strong connection to the people and the land of northern Saskatchewan,” he explained.

Riderville

Now for the Hard Part

Dec 10, 2025

Grey Cup!!!

Everything you wanted and more

Nov 21, 2025

open house

Surplus forecasted for 2026 La Ronge operating budget

Nov 17, 2025

“Unfortunately, the health outcomes and the social determinates of health [is low] among Canada in northern Saskatchewan. That means health care and high-quality health care is really needed.”

Although he is a family physician first and foremost, he spends a considerable amount of time working in the emergency department at the La Ronge Health Centre. In that department, he often sees patients would are at their sickest.

He noted becoming that sick is contributable to a variety of factors such as overcrowded housing, as well as past and recent traumas. Those health determinates lead to major injuries, substance abuse issues and a variety of illnesses.

“Our emergency department has gotten significantly busier since it was built,” Irvine added.

“For a bit of background, the [emergency] was built in 1996. At that point, they averaged 20 visits a day per 24-hour period. In 2022-2023 fiscal year, it averaged 45 patients per 24-hour period. At the same time, the referral centres of Prince Albert and Saskatoon have been getting more and more full, which means we are being asked to keep sicker and sicker patients for longer and longer.”

Irvine would like to see improvements to the emergency department in the coming years. He was part of a redesign with the Ministry of Health and he said a CT scan would be an asset to the department. Unfortunately, there has been no further talks about the redesign in years.

“As emergency gets busier and busier, I’m really hoping that project picks up again because of our emergency is not big enough or well-resourced enough to serve both La Ronge and our surrounding communities as far as Wollaston Lake as well as we should,” Irvine said.

“It’s also really time the people of northern Saskatchewan have access to a CT scan and that really needs to be part of an emergency redesign. There are a lot of trickle down components to getting a CT scan in La Ronge. That means patients get their care faster, they would get more accurate care, they would spend less time travelling by EMS. Less time travelling with EMS means faster 911 responses within the communities.”

–

derek.cornet@pattisonmedia.com