SASKATOON — Premier Scott Moe and Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill have unveiled an ambitious plan they hope will improve access to health care across Saskatchewan through investments in staffing, training, infrastructure and new models of care.
Dubbed the province’s Patients First Health Care Plan, it aims to address workforce shortages, expand services and ensure residents receive the right care at the right place and at the right time. Much of the funding and policy changes are part of a broader strategy to improve outcomes for patients across the province.
Moe said investing in urgent care centres, such as the one operating in Regina and the soon-to-open facility in Saskatoon, is part of the plan. Saskatoon and Regina will have two more UCCs, while similar facilities are expected to be built in Prince Albert and North Battleford.
The premier added that the UCCs will be staffed to support expanded training, recruitment and virtual care, which will help reduce pressure on emergency rooms and improve access to health-care services for Saskatchewan residents.
“Many people across the province have been concerned about timely access to health care, and it has been much of the discussion that we've had as a government as well, timely access to a surgery, timely access to that primary health-care provider,” said Moe during Monday’s announcement, March 9.
“We have listened to people across the province and listened to patients. Listened to families and listened to providers. I would say this is a government and a health-care system that continues to listen to you and encourages you.”
Cockrill, cabinet ministers Lori Carr (Mental Health and Addictions), Terry Jensen (Social Services), and Ken Cheveldayoff (Advanced Education), along with officials from the University of Saskatchewan, joined the announcement inside the soon-to-be-finished UCC facility in Saskatoon.
One of the targets they have set is 450,000 surgeries performed in the province over the next four years. The premier added that they are already on track to achieve that number, as more than 100,000 surgeries have already been performed. Reducing surgery wait times to three months is also a goal by 2028.
“To have 90 per cent of our patients who are waiting for a diagnostic test to have that diagnostic in 60 days or less, those are targets that we put out today, and there are efforts and initiatives of what we will discuss here today,” added Moe.
“Opening the conversation for the days ahead to ensure we can achieve those targets, put our patients first, and improve the outcomes everyone experiences when they use our healthcare system. So, we're hiring surgeons across the province.”
Moe said UCCs would help relieve pressure on hospital emergency rooms, such as St. Paul’s Hospital near the west-side facility, by treating patients whose conditions are urgent but not life-threatening, and provide another entry point into the health system, reducing wait times in emergency departments.
Some of the other key actions of the Patients First Health Care Plan include increasing the number and expanding the scope of practice for all health-care professionals; expanding access to virtual care; continuing to recruit, train and increase the number of doctors, nurses and nurse practitioners; and expanding diagnostic services like MRI, CT and PET-CT scans.
Cockrill said their health-care plan is based on what patients have told them, such as improving access to primary care, faster access to diagnostics and reducing wait times for necessary surgeries, which the health-care system is not looking to solve in the next week or the following month.
“The declaration is a commitment to accelerate the change that is already underway in our health-care system to provide access to modernized care and to strengthen the system so that its status is when people receive the right care in the right place,” said Cockrill.
NDP downplays government plan
The Saskatchewan NDP, however, criticized Moe’s announcement, with Opposition Leader Carla Beck saying it is a recycled plan first presented by the government of former premier Brad Wall.
Beck, in a statement, said the Saskatchewan Party majority remains out of touch and out of ideas despite being in office for 20 years, adding that the health-care plan they announced is the same as one from over a decade ago that has not worked.
“Last time the Sask. Party committed to a Patients First Plan in 2012, they promised that all people would be connected to a family physician. Angus Reid puts the number of people without a family doctor in Saskatchewan at 300,000, up from 200,000 just a few years prior. Rural emergency rooms close without warning, and patients in city hospitals are being forced to receive care in hallways and even waiting rooms because there are no available beds,” said Beck.
She added that the current government under Moe can’t even keep the Regina Urgent Care Centre open due to short staffing and has walked back its election promise of 24-hour staffing. The centre has been operating routinely on reduced hours.
“We need big, bold change to get our health system out of last place. Scott Moe and the Sask. Party broke our health-care system, and they can't be trusted to fix it.”
