A big-time voice in the province's healthcare scene weighed in last week on the current healthcare staffing situation.
Tyler Bragg, the vice-chair of the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA), said the lack of healthcare workers is a nationwide crisis that Saskatchewan is feeling some effects from.
With this in mind, the province is competing both within Canada and around the world for these skilled workers. The provincial government recently announced they're putting together a force to get some recruitment efforts going. He's thankful the government has come up with this initiative and is pretty confident that we will see some differences over the next twelve months.
Bragg was also quick to mention the stellar work being done by current healthcare staff.
"We're very lucky in Saskatchewan," he began. "We have such fantastic staff, doctors, and everyone who works in the authority. All of the care providers are just top-of-the-line, and I think we should all consider ourselves very lucky that we have them. And everybody is still pulling through, they are tired, they are very tired going through this pandemic but you wouldn't know it because they are still working very hard."
Overall, Bragg pointed out everybody is doing everything they can and are working hard to solve the current problems and he's confident they will overcome them.
The Swift Current resident brings a unique perspective considering his background in the healthcare field. He began with the Rolling Hills Health District as their Director of Finance and moved on to sit as the Chief Financial Officer of the Cypress Health Region. Bragg was also the Board Chair of the Cypress Health Region for a number of years.
After retiring from this position, he was then asked to be on a panel that would investigate how many health regions were necessary within the province and the result of this panel work was the recommendation of one Saskatchewan Health Authority.
A few years later, Bragg was asked to participate on the board of the SHA and he felt that having been involved with the recommendation to create the SHA, it was incumbent on him to do what he could on the board to help get everything settled for them. He himself was very motivated by being involved with healthcare in Saskatchewan and doing what he could to help friends, family, and the citizens of Saskatchewan.