The obstetrics and surgery departments at St. Joseph's Hospital in Estevan will have a gap in service from 7 a.m. Saturday to 7 a.m. Tuesday.

St. Joseph's Executive Director Greg Hoffort said the disruption is due to a nursing shortage in those departments.

"With the obstetrics ward and the surgery ward being specialty units that require special orientation for the nurses, there's a bit of a shortage at the moment due to a high number of leaves - maternity leaves and other issues. And so replacing the staff is always a challenge at these times and we continue to fill their temporary positions as they're off. But occasionally we run into a situation like this on the weekend where we're unable to staff the required number of nurses, so we're on bypass."

The affected departments will be available for "absolute emergencies." Otherwise, patients are being directed to Regina.

Hoffort said the pandemic hasn't helped with staffing.

"The pandemic has placed all kinds of challenges on our staff for sure. In this situation, there are a few vacant lines due to the higher-than-normal number of leaves occurring all at once. And so that is certainly the case here, where we just couldn't guarantee the required number of staff there to provide the emergency care that we need to."

He said the hospital regrets the disruption but will be back in full operation on Tuesday morning.