Once again Watrous Hospital has experienced closure of its ER over the evenings of February 10 and 11.
A conversation with Watrous Mayor John Gunderson revealed that the primary challenge was with temporary staff shortages in the hospital’s lab. It’s a situation that Gunderson is hoping to be short term. However, Watrous Hospital is just one rural and northern Saskatchewan centre experiencing those types of staffing challenges.
In response to a request for information, the Saskatchewan Health Authority forwarded the following statement on its recruitment efforts and progress.
Every jurisdiction in Canada is seeing increased demand for health care services. The Government of Saskatchewan, SHA and Saskatchewan Health Recruitment Agency are taking action to address the needs of patients. Guiding this effort is the Government of Saskatchewan’s Health Human Resources (HHR) Action Plan (saskatchewan.ca/HHR). This action plan includes:
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continued domestic and international recruitment of health-care workers (To date, 428 internationally educated health professionals have arrived in Saskatchewan. 424 of these are now employed in communities across the province);
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adding 250 new permanent full-time positions in 51 rural and remote communities, which includes RN positions. This includes nursing, paramedics, technologists and other staff members in communities across Saskatchewan;
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the Rural and Remote Recruitment Incentive is investing $8.7 million to continue to fill hard-to-recruit positions. The program has seen great success, with 405 positions filled so far through this program; and
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the Final Clinical Placement Bursary continues to see interest with 201 approved applications since March 31, 2024.