'Half-baked': Sask. NDP slams plan to send some hip, knee replacements out-of-province
Official Opposition Leader Carla Beck and NDP health critic Vicki Mowat called Thursday for the province to scrap its proposed private surgery plan.
"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,” Beck said in a news release.
“Scott Moe already had to send Saskatchewan patients out of province in the height of the pandemic for care. What’s remarkable is he’s now actually planning to do the same with this latest half-baked plan. 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.”
On Monday, the Sask Party government announced it had set a target to perform 7,000 more surgeries in 2022-23 than the highest-ever level, to reduce the surgical backlog.
To help meet those targets, the Saskatchewan Health Authority is exploring expansion with private sector partners. It will issue a request for proposals to build an orthopedic surgery facility focused on increasing operating room and bed capacity for in-patient joint replacements and a variety of day surgery procedures, according to a news release.
The government is also exploring a temporary, out-of-province surgical initiative for hip and knee replacements, in which the health authority would contract a private surgical facility to perform publicly funded orthopedic surgeries. It would be offered to patients on a voluntary basis, who have waited for the longest for their joint replacement procedures.
The Sask. NDP is also calling on the province to expand operating and diagnostic hours and incentivize and fund more full-time scarce positions including diagnostics, anesthesiologists and operating room nurses to help manage the surgical backlog.
Merriman said in a statement to CTV News that privately delivered surgeries have been an important part of Saskatchewan’s publicly funded surgical system for more than a decade. Since 2010-11 private clinics have delivered more than 128,000 publicly funded surgeries, he said.
"The NDP’s proposal would deny near-term relief to long-waiting surgical patients to satisfy their ideological opposition to the private delivery of publicly funded health services. Our government is taking an all of the above approach to addressing surgical wait times."
He said the province is working to expand private and public capacity in Saskatchewan over the medium and long term by recruiting more staff for the public system and procuring additional private capacity to provide low-risk elective procedures that do not require hospital stays.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
BREAKING Foreign meddling 'did not affect' overall federal election results: inquiry report
Foreign interference by China did not affect the overall results of the 2019 and 2021 general elections won by Justin Trudeau's Liberals, a federal commission of inquiry has found.
BREAKING Police arrest 3 in killing of B.C. Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar
Three people have been arrested and charged in the killing of B.C. Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Why your airfare may be getting more expensive
Skyrocketing airfare prices are linked to heightened competition and rising food and fuel, according to the CAA.
WATCH LIVE Funeral today for broadcasting legend and voice of 'Hockey Night in Canada' Bob Cole
A funeral is being held today for hockey broadcasting legend Bob Cole in his hometown of St. John's, N.L.
Magnitude 4.8 earthquake recorded west of Vancouver Island
A 4.8-magnitude earthquake was reported west of Vancouver Island Thursday evening.
Who is Hope Hicks, longtime Trump aide who is testifying in N.Y. hush money case?
Hope Hicks, once a longtime trusted aide in Donald Trump’s inner circle, is testifying Friday in the New York hush money trial after being subpoenaed.
TD worst-case scenario more likely after drug money laundering allegations: analyst
TD Bank Group could be hit with more severe penalties than previously expected, says a banking analyst after a report that the investigation it faces in the U.S. is tied to laundering illicit fentanyl profits.
How falling for a stranger she met on a beach led this woman to ditch the U.S. for the French Riviera
Niki Benjamin, from the U.S., had travelled to a paradise island to do some soul searching, and her life ended up going in a very different direction when her dog ran up to a stranger.
Biscuits with possible plastic pieces, metal found in ground pork: Here are the recalls for this week
Here are the latest recalls Canadians should watch out for, according to Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.