“Our health care system is going in the wrong direction.”
That was the sentiment from Sask. NDP leader Carla Beck Thursday morning, as she voiced her concerns with the provincial government to address and the growing surgical wait times in the province.
According to new Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) and Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) data, Saskatchewan has the worst surgical wait times in Canada.
According to the CIHI report, the median wait time for knee replacements in 2022 was 466 days. The national average was 190 days, and the second longest province was Manitoba at 336 days.
The data also shows the median wait time for hip replacements was 309 days.
The numbers put Saskatchewan at the bottom of the list when compared to other provinces.
“We all know someone who’s been waiting in pain for too long,” Beck said. “We need to be expanding our capacity in terms of operating rooms, capacity in terms of health care, staff capacity.”
Rural and Remote Health Critic Matt Love said he would also like to see the province more aggressively pursue retaining health-care workers.
And while SHA has posted jobs online, Love argues because they are only part-time positions, they are turning people away.
“Health-care workers want to work jobs where they can afford to live in our province and posting casual and part time positions … No wonder those are hard to fill,” he said.
The government has said it’s looking to lower wait times by completing additional surgeries this year, including some in private clinics.
The government has also put an emphasis on offering out of province surgery opportunities.
A statement from the Ministry of Health said the province is looking to complete 103,000 surgeries in 2023-24.
“Surgical wait lists have begun to come down since the peak in November 2021, with an almost 10 per cent reduction since pandemic highs,” the statement read.
“From April 1, 2022 to March 31, 2023 over 90,000 surgical procedures were performed, the highest ever recorded in Saskatchewan for a one-year period.”
The Ministry of Health said the waitlist target for 2023-34 is to reach pre-COVID-19 numbers of patients, with fewer than 25,000 on the waitlist by March 31, 2024.
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