Sask. Party, NDP hold dueling health-care announcements with election on the horizon

With the official beginning of the provincial election campaign imminent, the Saskatchewan government and the Official Opposition held duelling news conferences on health care Monday.

Health Minister Everett Hindley was joined by two other provincial ministers and multiple MLAs at Saskatchewan Polytechnic to mark the second anniversary of the province's health human resources action plan.

Meanwhile, NDP Leader Carla Beck criticized the government's approach to health care and committed to doing better if her party forms government. 

"I think people are tired of this government trying to put lipstick on on this problem," said Beck. 

Health human resources action plan

Hindley announced that the province has spent more than $300 million on its health human resources plan, meant to recruit, train, incentive and retain health-care workers. 

He said it has resulted in 218 physicians being recruited from outside of the province and 35 from outside Canada. 

Hindley said that means 87 family doctors and 131 specialists have established their practice in the province. 

The province has hired more than 1,400 recent nursing graduates from Saskatchewan and other provinces, he said. It has also recruited 400 internationally educated nurses from the Philippines, with 280 of them already placed in 70 communities across the province and the rest undergoing the clinical portion of their training.

Beck said the numbers offered by the province are misleading.

"The government number never wants to talk about net numbers, and the reality is that we continue to lose more health-care professionals out of the province than any other province," Beck said. 

She pointed to the government touting the recruitment of a pediatric gastroenterologist when the province has lost two gastroenterologists at the same time.

Hindley was pushed to provide the net numbers at Monday's news conference.

He said he believed that, "overall it's been … a net positive." 

"We do have more and more health-care workers working in our system right now," Hindley said. "Have we achieved everything we've set out to achieve? Perhaps not, but that's why the work continues."

Both parties open to nursing task force

On Monday, Beck said the NDP is committed to creating a nursing task force, something the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses (SUN) has been requesting for a long time.

"We would work with those on the front lines and listen to to the solutions that they have and start rebuilding a health-care system that right now is is in crisis," said Beck. 

Hindley said the province is open to the idea, but stopped short of committing.

Instead, he said discussions are ongoing and that he'd recently met with SUN leadership. Hindley said the there is a need to potentially include other health-care unions. 

"We've been having those discussions very recently about what the terms of reference might be, who would be part of that task force or council," Hindley said.

AIMS

Beck said she continues to have concerns about the AIMS human resources system and the soaring cost highlighted by the province's auditor. 

Tara Clemett found that implementing AIMS was expected to cost $86 million, but that the cost could climb to a projected $240 million.

It's also been the source of complaints from health-care workers who have received partial or no pay.

Hindley and Saskatchewan Health Authority CEO Andrew Will both said they have faith the problems with AIMS will be sorted out. 

"We've now processed six different payroll runs with our staff. So certainly getting better every week and in terms of making improvements," said Will.