Over 550 new post-secondary training seats are being added across 18 health-care training programs in Saskatchewan.
That’s according to the Ministry of Health, which says over $5.5 million is being commited to help create these seats, adding that this is part of the Health Human Resources (HHR) Action Plan.
“We are taking multiple actions under our ambitious HHR Action Plan to stabilize and steadily grow our health-care workforce. This includes training more health-care professionals here at home, and recruiting from within the province, across Canada and abroad,” Health Minister Paul Merriman said.
“This training seat expansion significantly increases educational opportunities for Saskatchewan students across multiple health disciplines and will generate increased interest in training and working in health care here in our great province.”
This expansion will kick in for Fall 2023, and includes positions like medical lab assistant, continuing care assistant, primary care paramedic, licensed practical nurse, pharmacy technician, clinical psychologist, physical therapist and mental health and addictions counsellor.
The province also noted that seats for specialized programs not available in Saskatchewan will also be purchased, including respiratory therapy, magnetic resonance imaging technology, diagnostic medical sonography, occupational therapy, electro-neurophysiology and cardiovascular perfusion.
“This initiative will open up exciting new health career options for many more Saskatchewan students by giving them greater access to training for their career of choice,” Advanced Education Minister Gordon Wyant said.
The province noted a public awareness campaign will also be rolled out to let potential students know what programs and supports are available for them as well.
It added that loans, grants, bursaries, scholarships and tax credits are available for students who take these programs.
Merriman said they are working with all their labour partners, like the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses and the Saskatchewan Medical Association, to come up with both long-term and short-term goals.
“We’re engaging all of our stakeholders to be able to find out what it is we can do (as) a short-term solution, which we’re working on – we’ve seen some successes – but also a long-term solution on how we’re going to grow the overall workforce,” Merriman said.
He noted there are still service disruptions across the province but says we’re seeing less and less of them.