Low retention, staffing shortage could impact province's plan to address surgical backlog: Sask. nurses union

Saskatchewan nurses are questioning the provincial government’s plan to dig the healthcare system out of a surgical backlog that is roughly 35,000 patients deep.

Last week, the province announced a plan to reduce the surgical backlog by 2025 and achieve a three-month wait-list by 2030. The Ministry of Health says it will do so by expanding operating hours, performing more procedures at regional surgical sites and increasing the number of third-party contracts with private surgical clinics.

However, Tracy Zambory, Saskatchewan Union of Nurses president, says there are not enough nurses and healthcare staff to support both public and private surgical clinics.

“It is obvious that there is a health human resource crisis in this province,” she said.

“I’m not understanding where they think they’re going to get the registered nurses to fill the private system.”

Anecdotally, she says she’s heard there are up to 200 unfilled nursing shifts in some emergency rooms in the province over the coming weeks. She says understaffing was a problem before the pandemic. COVID-19 has amplified it.

“(Health care workers’) mental health is very much suffering and it’s suffering to the point where they are starting to leave the profession,” Zambory said.

“If we can’t retain the people that we have there, how are we possibly going to be able to recruit in?”

According to Health Minister Paul Merriman, plans are in place to recruit additional healthcare workers, including international recruitment and increasing enrolment capacity at post-secondary institutions.

Merriman says the government has laid out “very aggressive targets” to reduce the backlog. The province plans to perform an additional 7,000 surgeries in 2022-23 over pre-pandemic levels. Those targets will grow by another 6,000 surgeries in 2023-24 and 5,000 in 2024-25.

The government has no current target for the number of surgeries to be performed at private clinics. All procedures will be publicly funded and nobody will be able to buy their way up the waiting list.

Zambory worries private clinics will “poach” healthcare workers from the public system, which could impact patients waiting for more complicated procedures.

“The last thing we want to see happening is more health human resources drained out of the pubic system to try to prop up this private system,” she said.

The official opposition is calling on the government to rethink its surgical plan and create capacity in the public health system, rather than the private system.

NDP leader Ryan Meili says healthcare professionals should take the lead, not government officials, when it comes to addressing the surgical backlog.

“We can work with doctors and nurses to develop a plan that will be more effective immediately, to efficiently use and prioritize the services that need to be done,” Meili said, adding there may be a need for private clinics but they should not be the focus.

According to the government, private surgeries are necessary in the short-term. Priority will be given to procedures with the most long-waiting patients like hip and knee replacements, ear, nose and throat surgeries as well as dental and general surgeries.