Story Posted: 2025-06-02
By Your Side Kidney Care Campaign Spotlight: Holistic Care Services
Pictured (l-r): Patient Stan Sheppard and Patient Porter Shazelle Paddit.
St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation’s By Your Side Kidney Care Campaign was built around three vital priorities: the establishment of Early Screening Programs in communities with high rates of kidney disease, the construction of a new Kidney Health and Education Centre at St. Paul’s Hospital, and the enhancement of the Hospital’s Holistic Care Services.
Holistic care has always been central to St. Paul’s mission. With a dedicated Mission Office and Spiritual Care team, the Hospital has long prioritized the care of mind, body, and soul. As the campaign took shape, St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation looked to how we might continue this legacy in a way that would impact the experience of patients and their families as soon as they arrived at the Hospital. Alongside our health care experts, we aimed not only to address patients’ health needs, but to ease some of the challenges that ongoing treatments can place on their lives.
This vision led to the creation of the two-year pilot Patient Porter Program, launched in the fall of 2023, which has already proven to be a vital support system for kidney patients receiving dialysis at the Hospital.
Every day, the porters assist between 40 and 50 patients, welcoming them at the door and helping them navigate the Hospital. For kidney health patients, this support is making all the difference. Many kidney patients with mobility or cognitive challenges rely on others to help them reach their life-saving treatments. Finding this support can be even more complex for patients who are arriving from outside of the city; for those living between Davidson and the Athabasca Basin in Saskatchewan’s far north, St. Paul’s Hospital is the primary point of contact for kidney health services.
Before the porters became a part of the St. Paul’s family, many patients relied on private transportation to access care. Private transportation, however, is costly — averaging $800 to $1,000 a month for door-to-door service three times a week. Public transit, while able to safely deliver patients to the Hospital’s entrance, cannot provide assistance to get them up to the unit. Both the cost of private services and a lack of support in navigating the Hospital can create true barriers to accessing care.
With the launch of the pilot Patient Porter Program, this reality changed. Thirty-three patients have now been positioned to cancel or avoid reliance on costly private transportation. Thanks to the generosity of our community, dialysis patients at St. Paul’s are collectively saving approximately $30,000 per month and an incredible $360,000 per year!
The program has also saved valuable time for patients’ loved ones. “Many friends and families have to take time away from work and their own schedules in order to provide transportation,” explains Krystal Sander, Interim Director of Kidney Health for Saskatoon and North. “Having the porters significantly decreases the time commitment for 26 of our patients’ support people, as they can now drop their loved one off at the entrance and don’t have to account for the time to transport patients to and from the unit.”
The generosity of St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation donors is having a profound impact, helping patients across the province access life-saving treatments with greater ease and less financial strain. We are grateful for all those who have supported, and continue to support, this transformative campaign.
To learn more about the By Your Side Kidney Care Campaign and the additional campaign priorities, visit ByYourSideSask.ca.