'Notoriously untransparent': Sask. budget to reduce surgery backlog has no plan behind it, expert says
Saskatchewan has no real strategy to perform more surgeries, according to a health policy analyst.
The province is spending $42 million for 6,000 more surgeries. It aims to conduct a total of 100,000 surgeries, and reduce the waitlist to its pre-pandemic level by March 2024.
“They’re pretty silent on how they're going to do that,” Steven Lewis, an adjunct professor of health policy at Simon Fraser University, told CTV News.
With a shortage of doctors and nurses in Saskatchewan, Lewis wonders how the province will hit its surgery target.
“A surgeon is a surgeon, and whether the surgeon is doing the procedure in a private facility, or the public facility, you're going to have a finite capacity,” Lewis says.
Surgeries are one of the only core medicare services that get contracted to private practices. Surgeons can operate in both publicly funded and private facilities.
Lewis questions the province’s motive for outsourcing surgery to the private sector. He says the contracts are “notoriously untransparent.”
“I don't see what the rationale is. If there's an economic case, make it transparent,” Lewis says.
“We never actually get to see how much they're paying for a procedure done in the private system compared to what it costs in the public system.”
The Ministry of Health did not provide the cost, or price difference, of public versus private surgeries but said private surgical centres increase capacity.
“Since the launch of private surgical centres in April 2010, third-party facilities in Regina and Saskatoon have provided much-needed additional day surgery capacity in the health system, performing roughly 13 per cent of the total number of surgeries completed in the province each year,” a statement from the ministry to CTV News, reads.
“These surgical procedures will remain publicly funded; in order to address our surgical wait list and improve access for our patients, we must take advantage of all opportunities to work with our partners to fully utilize the resources available.”
More than 34,000 patients are waiting for surgery in Saskatchewan, according to the latest data.
Twenty-four per cent of those patients have been waiting for more than a year. Orthopaedic surgery has the longest waitlist of 11,557 people.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), a data collection company funded by the provincial and federal governments, says the pandemic is largely responsible for longer wait times.
Since March 2020, CIHI found 937,000 fewer surgeries were performed across Canada.
In Saskatchewan, there were about 36,000 fewer surgeries.
CIHI found more patients aren’t receiving surgeries in the recommended time frame.
Tracy Johnson, the director of health system analytics at CIHI, says the data means more people are in pain longer, as they await their procedure.
“While it may not be life threatening for someone with a hip or knee replacement, not to get their surgery is uncomfortable pain,” Johnson says.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories

Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante collapses during press conference
Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante is 'out of danger' after collapsing during a press conference at City Hall on Tuesday morning.
Liberal ministers defend Speaker Fergus amid opposition resignation calls over video
Federal Liberal cabinet ministers are coming to the defence of House of Commons Speaker Greg Fergus amid calls from the Conservatives and Bloc Quebecois for him to resign from his impartial role over a video he made in his traditional Speaker's garb was broadcast at a partisan even over the weekend.
opinion Tom Mulcair: Poilievre keeps scoring into the Liberals' empty net
In his column for CTVNews.ca, former NDP leader Tom Mulcair says Pierre Poilievre's new 'Housing Hell' video dealt a "devastating" blow to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberals, whose cupboard seems empty of big ideas.
Financial intel agency hands down $7.4M penalty to Royal Bank of Canada
Canada's financial intelligence agency has levied a $7.4-million penalty against the Royal Bank of Canada for non-compliance with anti-money laundering and terrorist financing measures.
'Significant increase' in sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces, Statistics Canada reports
Statistics Canada is reporting a 'significant increase' in rates of sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) last year. The report also states instances of sexual assault were more prevalent among women.
6.9 million customers impacted by 23andMe hack: company
Millions of profiles were accessed by a threat in the 23andMe data breach. Here's what that includes.
Parents finding daycare more affordable now, but that doesn't mean they can find it: data
New data from Statistics Canada shows that while child care is getting more affordable for parents, actually finding it is getting more challenging.
The U.S. House will vote next week on formalizing its Biden impeachment inquiry, Speaker Johnson says
The U.S. House will vote next week on formally authorizing its impeachment inquiry into U.S. President Joe Biden, Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday, asserting Republicans have "no choice" but to push ahead as the White House has rebuffed their requests for information.
Are you a Canadian who has chosen to live on a cruise ship? We want to hear from you
CTVNews.ca wants to hear from people who have decided to relocate to live on a cruise ship at sea.