‘If Saskatchewan\u2019s fourth-largest city can\u2019t keep its doctors, what does it say about the state of health care everywhere else in this province?’<\/p>\n
MOOSE JAW \u2014 The Saskatchewan NDP is ringing the alarm bells over the fact that eight doctors have left Moose Jaw this year \u2014 although that number could increase further.<\/p>\n
MLA Jared Clarke, the NDP\u2019s shadow minister for rural and remote health, stood outside Dr. F.H. Wigmore Regional Hospital on Aug. 20 to discuss the concern.<\/p>\n
He stated that an eighth physician will have left by late August, which is \u201ca crisis\u201d for residents who need care. The NDP has heard that some doctors \u2014 with nearly 4,000 patients \u2014 have retired, while others are leaving for other health-care centres in Saskatchewan, are taking on bureaucratic roles, or leaving the province altogether. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Clarke noted that the NDP spoke with some Moose Jaw doctors, who believe the community needs twice as many physicians \u201cjust to keep afloat.\u201d Moreover, the NDP called every health clinic here and learned none was accepting new patients.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Saskatchewan\u2019s fourth-largest city can\u2019t keep its doctors, what does it say about the state of health care everywhere else in this province?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Clarke claimed that this issue was because of poor leadership, while he criticized the health minister and Moose Jaw\u2019s two MLAs for lacking plans to address this problem. He thought residents should question their MLAs about how they intended to improve this situation.<\/p>\n
MooseJawToday.com has heard from a source that two more doctors are expected to leave by November, bringing the total to 10 \u2014 or one-third of the city\u2019s complement of physicians.<\/p>\n
In response, Clarke said the loss of 10 doctors would be \u201ca huge loss\u201d for residents. He noted that a parent with a sick child may have to spend hours in the emergency room waiting for care if there aren\u2019t any family doctors available. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if you have a family doctor in the city, we know that the wait times to get in are (still) really long \u2026 ,\u201d he remarked.<\/p>\n
MooseJawToday.com asked Clarke whether the province\u2019s two universities should prioritize Saskatchewan-born students for training seats instead of international students since the former are more likely to remain after graduation.<\/p>\n
Clarke said that the two nursing colleges should \u201cabsolutely\u201d take that step. Moreover, there should be more training seats for Saskatchewan-born students and more flexibility to ensure students who train in Saskatoon are guaranteed a spot to practice in their hometown.<\/p>\n
The NDP MLA also noted that there are roughly 500 foreign-trained doctors in Saskatchewan who aren\u2019t working and could address the shortage of physicians. He thought that \u201cinnovative thinking\u201d was required to put these people to work. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Clarke said the exodus of doctors is being seen across the province.<\/p>\n
He noted that data showed there are 286 vacant physician positions in the province, while more doctors are leaving than choosing to call Saskatchewan home. Specifically, in 2023, he noted that four family doctors moved to Saskatchewan, while 26 left.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat means we lost 22 family physicians that year. That\u2019s the second-worst rate in all of Canada,\u201d he remarked. \u201cNow that\u2019s on our government. They\u2019ve been in power for 18 years and have put us in this position.\u201d<\/p>\n
He again accused the Sask. Party of making the problem worse, saying that sources have told the NDP that the SHA is allegedly \u201cpoaching\u201d family doctors for hospital or administrative positions, piling \u201cimpossible workloads\u201d onto the ones who remain, and driving other doctors out of the province.<\/p>\n
The NDP MLA added that better recruitment and retention incentives are required, while the province must end policies that pull physicians away from patient care.<\/p>\n
In an email, the provincial government said the SHA is working to fill current and upcoming physician vacancies, and since September 2022, when the Health Human Resources Action Plan began, nearly 512 physicians \u2014 263 family doctors and 249 specialists \u2014 have established practices in Saskatchewan. Moreover, an additional 21 health-care professionals have been hired for Moose Jaw.<\/p>\n
The email noted that the Ministry of Health is working with other partners to improve physician recruitment and retention, including expanding medical residency seats and post-graduate medical residency training sites in Moose Jaw and elsewhere.<\/p>\n
The province accused the \u201clost and reckless NDP\u201d of \u201cdrumming up hysteria\u201d without offering any solutions or plans, not supporting the virtual physician program, and allegedly committing to destroying industries that fund public services.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe NDP threaten your health-care with empty contradictions, while our government delivers care with consistent action,\u201d the province added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘If Saskatchewan\u2019s fourth-largest city can\u2019t keep its doctors, what does it say about the state of health care…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":["post-87403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}