Sask. finance minister cautions against using surplus to fund overburdened health system
Sask. finance minister cautions against using surplus to fund overburdened health system
Saskatchewan’s healthcare spending will rise to record levels in the 2023-24 provincial budget but, after adjusting for inflation, critics say the boost is weaker than advertised.
The province is planning on just over $7 billion in health spending across all departments for 2023-24, up from $6.823 billion last year. In other words, a three per cent increase in spending, when year-over-year inflation was 6.6 per cent, according to the province.
“Unfortunately we’re just keeping pace with inflation,” said Vicki Mowat, NDP critic for health. “When people can not get access to a doctor, or a nurse practitioner, there is a serious problem in this province.”
Finance Minister Donna Harpauer told the media on Wednesday that spending more of the current surplus on health care could have been a dangerous move.
“If that surplus is due to one-time revenue, be very careful,” she said. “If you put it into health care and then you say, ‘Just kidding,’ the next year, then what have you really gained?”
The provincial government is leaning into its efforts to hire more healthcare workers, establishing a new agency to recruit and retain staff.
"We have a very good success rate with key position like nursing across hard to recruit areas," said Paul Merriman, health minister.
"We've got almost 400 conditional offers from Filipino nurses, we have 100 nurses that we hired in December alone, we have another cohort that's graduating in April that we're going to be looking at hiring ... I think this goes to show that our program is working."
The province will spend $100 million across all departments as part of its recruitment plans, with $55.5 million going to the health ministry.
An effort to create 250 new full-time positions will be bolstered by an extra $22 million, 100 of which have already been filled, the government says.
An $11.9 million investment will continue the international recruitment efforts, according to a provincial news release.
Finance minister Donna Harpauer told media Wednesday morning that some of these investments won’t see an impact for a few years, as the province works to expand the number of training seats for health workers.
Mowat says the recruitment efforts should put more focus on ambulance services.
“We’ve been hearing about the crucial need for investment in emergency services for so long now,” said Mowat.
“We hear from folks consistently that those supports are not there when they need them, and I think that’s evidenced when we see people having to wait hours for an ambulance to show up, hours at the emergency room to be offloaded by the ambulance,” she said.
“We know these are pressures due to short staffing, and not having enough of these people on the road when we need them.”
People take for granted that there will be an ambulance available when they need it, Mowat says, and that’s not always the case.
Merriman defended his government's $8 million increase to EMTs, saying they already made a significant investment in new EMT positions last year. The health ministry is also working on reducing the amount of time it takes EMTs to discharge patients once they get to emergency rooms, he said.
For capital spending, the province is putting nearly $100 million toward the Victoria Hospital redevelopment in Prince Albert, $38 million for the Weyburn General Hospital project, and $20 million for a long-term care facility in La Ronge, plus other smaller investments across the province.
Public health and community care initiatives are seeing an increase of $6.6 million this year, with the province looking to hire five more virtual triage physicians for HealthLine 811.
RECRUITMENT EFFORTS CREATING WAGE DISPARITIES, UNION SAYS
The Canadian Union of Public Employees says the government has paid more than $730,000 to hire LPNs through a private staffing firm.
Bashir Jalloh, president of CUPE 5430, says these privately contracted staff are hurting morale because they’re being offered higher wages than Saskatchewan-based workers doing the same job, and they’re being offered compensation for travel, accommodations and meals.
“Imagine you are a CCA who has been working for the Saskatchewan Health Authority for the last five years,” Jalloh said in a news release. “Suddenly you are working side by side with someone from a private company who is doing the same job as you, but getting paid more per hour, and with free accommodations, meals and expenses covered.”
A U.S. federal court unsealed an indictment against Donald Trump on Friday detailing 37 charges against the former president for retaining classified government documents after he left office in 2021.
Air Canada has rejected compensation claims from some travellers who were among the thousands affected by flight delays caused by computer problems in recent weeks -- a response it now calls 'erroneous,' with cash offers en route.
Amid raging wildfires in western and eastern provinces, vice-president of the Insurance Bureau of Canada, Craig Stewart, shares what residents need to know about wildfire policy coverage.
Environment Canada has been advising people to check the Air Quality Health Index as wildfire smoke blanketed large swaths of Canada in recent days, but even without wildfires, the index can be a useful tool to monitor air pollution.
Anthaea-Grace Patricia Dennis is not your typical 12-year-old. She is a child prodigy who's about to become the youngest Canadian to ever graduate from university.
The father of Tori Stafford, an Ontario girl who was murdered in 2009, says the latest decision to transfer convicted killer Paul Bernardo to a medium-security prison is a 'slap in the face' to all murder victims' families.
Two years after two statues were knocked down and damaged at the Manitoba Legislature, one is now back up and Indigenous leaders are upset by the decision.
Canada's unemployment rate ticked up in May for the first time in nine months, but forecasters say the Bank of Canada will have to see more softening in the economy before it takes it takes a step back from raising interest rates.
Winnipeg police say a woman is in hospital with severe injuries after she was allegedly stabbed by a man in what police describe as a completely random and unprovoked attack.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith named her new cabinet Friday, about two weeks after her United Conservative Party took the majority of seats in Alberta.
WestJet and Swoop pilots have ratified a new collective agreement after a bargaining process that saw the threat of a strike snarl many Canadians' long weekend plans last month.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith named her new cabinet Friday, about two weeks after her United Conservative Party took the majority of seats in Alberta.
Statistics Canada released its May 2023 Labour Force Survey on Friday, which showed Alberta's unemployment rate dipping to 5.7 per cent, down from 5.9 per cent in April.
A new report by the city’s ombudsman found that the Toronto Community Housing Corporation failed to properly address human rights complaints made by tenants and has not made human rights and the dignity of residents “a priority.”
Hundreds of counter-protesters gathered near two schools in Ottawa's west end on Friday to take a stand against a B.C. man who is protesting what he calls "gender ideology."
The Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway in Ottawa's west end will be renamed Kichi Zībī Mīkan, if approved by the National Capital Commission's board of directors.
The Ottawa Board of Trade has unveiled a "roadmap to transformation' for downtown Ottawa, and is calling on all three levels of government to declare the core "their top priority."
Showers on Saturday could sprinkle an aggressive wildfire that has forced more than two-thousand people from their homes in northeastern British Columbia, but forecasters say thunderstorms could sweep the parched region before any rain arrives.
Montreal police (SPVM) stats for 2022 show that crime went up dramatically in 2022 and, taking COVID-19 pandemic numbers into account, violent crimes have been on the rise overall since 2017. In addition, motor vehicle thefts skyrocketed, having more than doubled since pre pandemic years.
The arrival of firefighters from France and New Brunswick is expected to bolster efforts to contain and control the large number of fires burning across Quebec in what's expected to be a marathon wildfire season, officials said Friday. Maite Blanchette Vezina, the province's minister of forests and natural resources, said the situation in the province remains critical but is improving.
A 50-year-old man who was severely beaten in the parking lot of Montreal's famed Orange Julep restaurant last month has died of his injuries, police said Friday. The victim died of his injuries in hospital on Thursday following the May 31 altercation. The Montreal police service's major crime unit is now investigating the man's death as the city's 10th homicide of the year.
A vehicle detour route that is serving as a lifeline between eastern and western Vancouver Island amid a raging wildfire will be closed for much of the day Friday.
Nova Scotia has lifted its mandatory evacuation order for Shelburne County, in the area where the largest recorded wildfire in provincial history has been burning for about two weeks.
The Halifax Regional Municipality says it will announce Thursday when more residents can return to their homes in communities impacted by the Tantallon wildfires.
Police are requesting the public’s help in identifying a suspect they allege yelled ‘racial comments’ to pedestrians and damaged two vehicles by intentionally crashing into them last weekend in Grand Bend, Ont.
