Treatment of Health Care Workers

While the current government has had success in recruiting Registered Nurses (because they’ve made it a clear priority and actually devoted resources
to it), they have placed no emphasis on addressing severe shortages in
other classifications within the health care sector.
In fact, despite the fact that the several positions filled by SEIU-West members (including LPN, Lab Techs, Special Care Aides, and Operating Room Techs) are now listed as “hard to recruit” positions, SEIU-West’s position that appropriate market adjustments for these
positions needed to be included in the most recent contract were firmly
rejected by the health regions and the provincial government.
These staff shortages result in health care workers being run ragged,
stretched too thin, and facing overwhelming workloads. And despite the
best efforts of health care workers, these staff shortages affect the
quality of care for patients and residents. This is a vicious cycle
which leaves health care workers even more demoralized.
In 2007, there were 87 physician vacancies here. Now there are approximately 125 physican vacancies in Saskatchewan (healthcareersinsask.ca).
That’s an increase of 44%! According to the Saskatchewan Medical
Association, doctor shortages in our province have reached “crisis
levels.” Last year, just 26 of the 59 medical graduates from the
University of Saskatchewan stayed in our province for residency programs
— this is the lowest rate in the entire country. Unfortunately,
recruitment and retention of physicians has largely been left up to
communities. Rather than having a balanced, centralized approach to
recruitment and retention, local communities have spent hundreds of
thousands of dollars to recruit and retain physician. For example,
Nipawin spent nearly $800,000.