Due to the wildfires in west-central Saskatchewan that happened on Tuesday, 27 patients from the Leader health facility were evacuated and moved to Swift Current.

Of the 27, 24 are long-term care patients, and three are short-term patients.

Larry Allsen is the interim CEO, CFO, and the vice president of corporate services for the Cypress Health Region.

"We set up our emergency operations centre at about 3:30 p.m. yesterday afternoon when we were informed of a fire that was rapidly spreading down by Burstall, and heading towards the town of Leader," Allsen said. "We decided to make the call around quarter after five in the best interest and safety of our residents and patients from the hospital that we would move them into Swift Current. We got some handy vans together, we got a bus, loaded our residents, we had some ambulances to take the acute patients and left the town at about 6:30 p.m."

He added that it was quite the journey to Swift Current, as the winds that were blowing at over 120 kilometres per hour and were causing the handy vans to rock back and forth all the way to Swift Current.

Allsen said the vehicles started to arrive after 9:30 p.m.

Five residents were put into the Clover House, four were administered into the regional hospital, and the rest were admitted to the community centre.

Allsen said that they have no indication of when they will be sending the patients back to Leader, but added that it is not a long-term plan to keep them in Swift Current.

"It's not ideal," he said. "If we can't send them back tomorrow, we heard some rumours that maybe three days, but we don't know that for sure. We will look after them the best we can under the circumstances, and I think in a day or two they will be back home."

Allsen added that they had contacted SaskPower and they are aware the two facilities in Leader have no power.

Allsen said that overall it was a pretty smooth - other than a little bit of a frightening - ride into Swift Current from the wind and that all the patients are doing okay, but they are little anxious as they want to go home.