MARTENSVILLE — Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill resumed his provincial tour to highlight the government’s hiring efforts to fill health care worker vacancies, announcing on Thursday the hiring of a new nurse practitioner joining the Martensville Collective Health & Wellness.
NP Erin Boyce is the latest addition to the health care facility’s medical team that is composed of four doctors and one physiotherapist. She replaces Dr. Vanessa Leung Shing, who ended her practice on Wednesday, and will continue seeing the latter’s patients if they want to.
Doctors Allison Adamus, Khadija Dulymamode, Jamil Sawaya and Amanda Walker and physiotherapist Trevor Adamus are the other medical staff at Martensville Collective. The Martensville Primary Health Centre has three NPs, as stated on the Saskatchewan Health Authority’s website.
The eight medical health care professionals will serve the community’s a little more than 12,000 residents, or a ratio of 1 to 1,500 possible patients. This does not include the nearby city of Warman and the towns of Dalmeny and Osler. Martensville is one of the fastest-growing cities in Saskatchewan.
Cockrill said that the hiring of Boyce, one of the 26 NPs to sign a contract during the government’s second intake, is part of its broader strategy to expand the health care workforce and improve access to primary care across the province. There are now 49 NPs under the Health Ministry.
He also announced that applications are now open for a third intake until Aug. 23, with the government hoping to attract graduating NPs to begin practising in Saskatchewan as it continues to expand and strengthen the province’s health care workforce through the Patients First Health Care Action Plan.
"Together, these efforts are strengthening our health care teams and helping us to ensure that all Saskatchewan residents have access to a primary care provider by 2028. As long as we have unattached patients in the province, it's not enough. We need to add more practitioners,” said Cockrill.
He added that the province has also removed the cap on the number of NP contracts, as the provincial government wants to provide opportunities for every qualified NP interested. Saskatchewan’s NP training seats will also increase by 47 per cent in September to help build the long-term workforce.
Despite the latest recruitment announcement, Cockrill acknowledged more work remains to be done, particularly in rapidly growing communities such as Martensville and Warman, and the SHA is examining ways to understand why health care workers leave, including conducting exit interviews.
"When people do leave, it's helpful to know that, and if there are deeper issues, that's an opportunity to figure out how to address those issues," said Cockrill, who added that knowing the reasons why health care workers leave the province would identify retention issues.
Shadow Labour Minister Nathaniel Teed, speaking ahead of the announcement outside Martensville Collective’s facility, argued the government continues to focus on recruitment announcements without addressing health care workers leaving the province.
He welcomed the addition of another NP but said it does not offset the loss of physicians, and questioned the government's recruitment results, saying Saskatchewan residents deserve greater transparency about retention.
"This community is losing a physician while seeing a valuable [NP] being added. We welcome nurse practitioners. They are going to do great things in our province, but we can't continue to see physicians leave Saskatchewan,” said Teed.
"I'm happy to hear that we have 26 [NPs] coming in. How many are we losing? How many family doctors are we losing? How many health care workers are we losing? That's the real question here. [NPs] have a role to play. But we have to make sure we're not just replacing physicians who leave."
He added that retaining health care professionals must be addressed if the province’s health care crisis is to be fixed, and the healthcare challenges will require more than recruitment alone, arguing Saskatchewan must retain existing staff while expanding physician-led, team-based care.
