Vicki Mowat, the Saskatchewan NDP's health critic, said that if elected, her party will make rural health care improvements an immediate priority. (Shane Clausing/650 CKOM)

By CKOM News - Shane Clausing

Healthcare

Saskatchewan NDP pledges to improve rural health-care if elected

Sep 13, 2024 | 4:54 PM

The Saskatchewan NDP is calling on Scott Moe and the Sask. Party to do more when it comes to getting health care back on track in rural Saskatchewan.

NDP health critic Vicki Mowat suggested these issues will be one of the first things her party would address if it forms government after this fall’s election.

“If we’re given the opportunity to form government in just a few short weeks, we won’t delay. We will get to work on ending the health-care crisis right away,” she said.

“It’s time to get Saskatchewan out of last place, and I know my colleagues and I won’t rest until every person in Saskatchewan has a family doctor, until people can get the surgeries they need and our hospitals are open and ready for patients in the event of an emergency.”

Jared Clarke, the NDP’s critic for rural and remote health, said one of the biggest items it will focus on if elected is recruiting and retaining health-care workers in rural settings.

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While that has also been a focus of the Saskatchewan Party government, which launched its Health Human Resources Action Plan in 2022, Clarke said the government is falling short.

“We’ve lost in one in five rural nurses of the last six years in the province. This is certainly a retention issue, and that lies at the feet of the Sask. Party,” he said.

“We believe that this is a management issue on the government’s part for how they’re allocating and treating workers. There’s enough money in the health-care budget to provide the supports and services that Saskatchewan people need when they need it in their communities.”

The NDP said that if elected, the party would form a nursing task force – a long-standing request from the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses – in order to communicate directly with health-care workers and hear about their concerns.

Clarke added that the NDP will explore an option to make more nursing positions in rural areas full time instead of part time.

“One of the things that we hear around rural and remote job postings currently is that a lot of them are part time and casual work,” he said.

“These communities are unable to attract new nurses, doctors because who is going to move their family or partner to a small town when all you’re being offered is a casual or part-time position? This is a major issue. We’ve heard this across the province, and certainly that would be one of our key initiatives – making these full time and permanent positions.”

The NDP said its full plan on health care will be released closer to the provincial election, which must be held on or before October 28.

In response to the NDP’s claims, the Sask. Party says it has filled and continues to fill vacant positions in rural settings across the province since it put forward their Health Human Resources Action Plan in the fall of 2022.

The government says it has hired over 1,700 health-care workers in rural and regional communties since their 2022 plan was announced, and that it is continuing with progress every day.

“We now have over 1,000 more physicians practising in the province than when we were first given the honour of forming government in 2007, a 62 per cent increase which far outpaces the population growth rate of 23 per cent. Our record is a stark contrast to the NDP, who closed 52 rural hospitals and, in their last five years in government, ran 173 physicians and 450 nurses out of the province,” it added.