Province posts over 175 new full-time rural, remote health jobs

The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) and Ministry of Health posted 125 new, full-time, front-line healthcare positions in rural and remote communities to address staffing shortages.

In addition, over 50 existing part-time positions have been enhanced to full-time. The province said creating and upgrading the positions is a part of its health human resources action plan.

“Bolstering our health care workforce through our aggressive action plan will attract more health care professionals to practice in communities where they are most needed,” Minister of Health Paul Merriman said in a media release.

“The creation of more permanent full-time positions will lead to better retention of our health care workforce in these rural and northern areas.”

The positions span 49 communities across the province and include registered nurses, registered psychiatric nurses, licensed practical nurses, continuing care aids, medical radiation technologists, medical lab assistants and combined lab and x-ray technicians.

“Following the announcement of the health human resources action plan, the SHA worked directly with its team on the ground at local health facilities to determine what staffing enhancements would help them most,” SHA chief human resources officer Mike Northcott said.

“We are pleased to have the support of the ministry in taking a flexible approach to aligning the new resources with local needs.”

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Available jobs are posted at healthcareersinsask.ca.

The Saskatchewan Union of Nurses (SUN) said recruitment is just one the steps the province needs to take to fully solve the issue in health care.

“This is one of the pieces of a strategy,” said SUN president Tracy Zambori. “These positions are important. We absolutely support more full-time positions but we also need to do some leg work and find out why people are leaving the system. Retention is an issue.”

A new, one-time incentive of up to $50,000 is now available. The province hopes it will attract new employees to the targeted positions in rural and remote areas.

“We believe it is the most aggressive incentive program in the entire country,” said Everett Hindley, Saskatchewan's Minister of Rural and Remote Health.

NDP Health Critic Vicki Mowat says retention isn’t solved through an initial incentive.

“The program may attract people initially,” she said. “But long-term retention is about more than that initial attraction. What is the plan to plan to retain people long-term?”

“We have heard directly from frontline health care workers that more permanent positions are integral to enhancing health care services across our province,” said Everett Hindley, Minister of Rural and Remote Health. “By offering competitive incentive packages and focusing on key retention practices, we will expand our health care workforce, stabilize health care services and build a stronger health care system ready to meet the needs of a growing province.”

Mowat said rural areas of the province have dealt with disruptions to emergency care.

“There are rippling effects through the health care system right now,” she said. “The added pressure it adds to the region when people don’t know whether their emergency room is open. This is where we see how the Sask Party takes rural Saskatchewan for granted.”

Hindley said the announcement Friday is just one step in addressing the disruptions rural health care is seeing.

“What we’ve tried to identify is the cause of the temporary disruptions we are seeing,” he said. “It is important to note, this is simply a starting point. We have more work to do.”