Across the province, there is a healthcare crisis, with many emergency rooms and clinics having to close for a few hours to days at a time or permanently..The healthcare facilities exist, there is no staff to run them..Dale Clarke is a healthcare worker in Canora and describes the situation at his facility..“I am a casual worker and not guaranteed hours. It is not enough to live on, let alone move here for. And when I see the level of care, it makes me concerned about aging here,” Clarke told the Western Standard..A lot of the jobs in healthcare are only casual or part-time, without stable jobs, the province cannot hope to attract healthcare workers, NDP Leader Carla Beck said while speaking at Melville Hospital..“I know Saskatchewan’s back roads, farms, and small towns have so much to offer health workers wanting to make a life in our unique province,” said Beck. .“Yet the Sask Party government can’t expect health workers to flood in if they won’t offer them stable jobs.”.Denise Dick, Saskatchewan Union of Nurses (SUN) vice president, knows there is a staffing shortage as she hears about it daily..“We know that there is a shortage. We know there are problems. Our members have told us that,” said Dick..SUN represents over 10,000 registered nurses, registered psychiatric nurses, and nurse practitioners in Saskatchewan..Every year, SUN conducts a survey of nurses and this year’s survey released in the spring showed 83% of units reported vacant positions, up from only 40% in 2021..Dick said the current situation is unsustainable, with 58% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the past 12 months..“People, like the numbers say, aren’t willing to work like that anymore. They don’t want to sustain that. They can’t sustain it,” Dick said..“If they just knew they were being heard that somebody was listening to their concerns about what’s happening in their facilities, what’s happening with healthcare in this province.”.Clarke asks Premier Scott Moe to come and see what’s happening..“I urge the premier to come up and visit himself. So, he can see the situation here first hand,” said Clarke..Everett Hindley, Mental Health and Addictions, Seniors, and Rural and Remote Health minister, said the issue is “a result of understaffing” in a public statement..On July 14, the Official Opposition Caucus Chair and Critic for Seniors Matt Love and hundreds of concerned Kamsack residents demanded government action on the closure of all the acute care beds at the Kamsack hospital..“This is a government that refuses to take responsibility for decisions that they’ve made,” said Love. .“After being in power for fifteen years, the healthcare staffing crisis is theirs and theirs alone. The hundreds of people who came to this rally are tired of excuses. They want solutions.” .Kamsack acute care patients are being sent to neighbouring hospitals in Yorktown, Canora, and Preeceville, which also have service disruptions compounding the problem..Hindley addressed the service disruption in Kamsack as a temporary situation..“In the case of Kamsack, what we have happening there is a service disruption, a temporary one, because of some staffing challenges we face there. As a result, the Saskatchewan Health Authority had to close the beds there at that particular facility,” said Hindley..“We are committed, myself as the minister in this government is committed, to doing everything we can to bring staff to places like Kamsack to make sure that we restore those services as quickly as possible to the people in those areas.”.Kamsack is one of 37 hospitals and care centres experiencing some form of a “service disruption” because of staffing issues..Melville hospital has five job postings for nursing, but all are part-time or casual..Beck called on the province to offer full-time positions to nurses, lab techs, and other healthcare workers to fix the broken system..“The Sask Party government has broken our health system and refuses to take responsibility,” said Beck. .“The solutions are there for the government if they simply mustered the political will and courage to listen to health workers.” .Hindley said the government is recruiting in Canada and outside of the country, as well as training more healthcare staff in the province..Enrolment in nursing programs across Saskatchewan are at an all-time high, which is a medium-term solution that the government is trying to use..“We have both short, medium, and long-term strategies that we’re focusing on. In terms of short term, what we’re trying to do is look at anything and everything that we need to do when it comes to staffing these facilities,” said Hindley..“We are hearing from them, what some of the challenges, and barriers are that they are facing and trying to get some ideas from them in terms of what is it that we need to do to help shore up these disruptions.”.Hindley said that the premier, health minister, and himself are travelling around the province and interacting with healthcare workers..“I’m going around the province and the premier is as well, the health minister, and all of our MLAs, talking to community leaders and talking to frontline workers and those that work directly in health care that have gone above and beyond the past couple of years,” said Hindley..However, there is no proof that the Saskatchewan government is doing any consultations around the province..The Western Standard sent several requests to the Saskatchewan Party and received no answer..Love pointed out that the NDP is talking with frontline healthcare workers, but the Saskatchewan government is not interacting with the workers..“If they actually wanted to address the issues plaguing communities across the province, they would be doing what my colleagues and I have been doing … meeting with healthcare workers, meeting with families who are affected to hear the solutions that they have to offer,” said Love..“The Sask Party’s head-in-the-sand approach isn’t working. Saskatchewan people deserve access to healthcare when they need it.”.Paul Merriman, Health minister, has not even held a press conference since May..Vicki Mowat, NDP Health critic, addressed the major health issues facing the province on Thursday..“We haven’t seen Paul Merriman address the public or media in months. All while new mothers face a terrifying epidural shortage, monkeypox emerges, hospitals across the province are being shuttered, and our hospitals here in Saskatoon are again bursting at the seams,” said Mowat. .“We all love a great Saskatchewan summer, but the minister has a job to do. Now is not the time to be radio silent.”.The Saskatchewan government has made some progress in healthcare this year..In the first five months of 2022, the province did 5,000 more surgeries than during the last five months of 2021..The goal is to complete 7,000 more surgeries in 2022 than in 2021..However, the surgical waitlist is still at an all-time high because of all the surgeries cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic..The province announced they are looking at sending some surgeries out of the province to complete even more surgeries this year..Unified Head of Surgery for Saskatchewan, Dr Ivar Mendez, criticized the proposed surgery plan as they could spend the money creating a better public system instead of expanding private care..Beck criticized Moe for not listening to his own experts about expanding private care and sending patients out of the province..“Saskatchewan’s health system is in a short-staffing crisis. If Scott Moe would listen to the experts or even his head of surgery, he’d know that creating a private surgical clinic relying on the already scarce workforce simply won’t work,” said Beck..“We don’t need to rely on other provinces health systems to care for our own. We need to fix our public health system here at home.”
