Patients First? The Reality Facing Saskatchewan’s Health-Care System

The Saskatchewan government recently announced its new “Patients First Health Care Plan,” promising better access to care, shorter wait times, and a system where patients receive “the right care in the right place at the right time.”

On the surface, that sounds exactly like what everyone wants. Faster treatment, more access to doctors, and a health-care system that functions more efficiently. But the real question isn’t whether the idea sounds good. The real question is whether it is actually possible.

Because when you look closely at the current state of Saskatchewan’s health-care system, one uncomfortable truth becomes clear: no health-care reform plan can succeed without the people who actually deliver the care.

Right now, those people are already stretched to their limits.

Health care does not run on announcements, strategies, or slogans. It runs on workers. Behind every hospital room, long-term care facility, and emergency department is a team of people who keep the system functioning.

Doctors and nurses are often the most visible, but they are only part of the workforce. The system also depends on Continuing Care Assistants, dietary staff, cleaners, clerical staff, maintenance workers, technicians, and many others.

These workers assist patients, keep facilities clean and safe, prepare meals, manage records, and support every part of the care environment.

Without them, the system simply stops.

Yet across Saskatchewan, many health-care workers report the same reality: staff shortages, mandatory overtime, burnout, and difficulty getting time off.

In hospitals and long-term care homes, workers are often covering multiple roles or caring for more patients than the system was designed to handle.

This situation has been building for years.

At the same time, many workers are still negotiating contracts that expired long ago. CUPE Local 5430, which represents thousands of health-care support staff across the province, has been bargaining after contracts expired in March 2023.

Some workers have gone years without a new agreement while the cost of living continues to rise.

That situation alone makes recruitment and retention more difficult.

The provincial government says its new health-care strategy will recruit more workers. But recruitment in health care is not simple. Health-care professionals can work almost anywhere in Canada, and provinces compete for the same workforce.

If other provinces offer higher wages, better staffing levels, or better working conditions, workers move.

Many Saskatchewan health-care workers have already left for provinces such as Alberta, British Columbia, and Manitoba, where compensation and working conditions are often more competitive.

That leads to an obvious question.

If workers are already leaving the province, where exactly are the new workers supposed to come from?

Recruitment campaigns cannot succeed if the system they are recruiting people into is already struggling to keep the staff it has.

Adding to the frustration for many frontline workers is the perception that money is being spent everywhere except where it matters most. The provincial government has invested heavily in projects such as the AIMS system (Administrative Information Management System), a province-wide digital health record initiative that has cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

At the same time, reports have highlighted raises for senior administrators within the Saskatchewan Health Authority and related organizations.

Those decisions have not gone unnoticed by workers on the front lines.

From their perspective, they see funding directed toward technology systems, administrative structures, and executive salaries while the people actually providing care continue to struggle with staffing shortages and stagnant wages.

For many workers, the message feels backwards.

Because the most important resource in health care is not a computer system or a management structure. It is the workforce.

The Patients First plan includes several ideas that sound promising. These include expanding urgent care centres, increasing the role of nurse practitioners, expanding virtual care, and reducing surgical wait times.

All of those goals depend on one simple factor.

Someone has to staff the urgent care centres. Someone has to perform the surgeries. Someone has to assist patients in hospitals and residents in long-term care homes.

If the workers needed to deliver those services are already overworked and leaving the system faster than new ones arrive, expanding services becomes extremely difficult.

You cannot build a stronger health-care system while its workforce continues to shrink.

Health-care policy experts across Canada often say the fastest way to stabilize a system is not recruitment. It is retention. Keeping experienced workers in the system is far more effective than constantly trying to replace them.

Retention requires competitive wages, manageable workloads, safe staffing levels, and respect for frontline workers.

Without those conditions, experienced staff eventually reach a breaking point.

When they leave, the system loses years of knowledge and experience that cannot easily be replaced.

Everyone wants a better health-care system. Patients want faster access to care. Communities want hospitals and long-term care homes that function properly. Health-care workers want safe working conditions and the ability to do their jobs without constant burnout.

The Patients First plan may contain ideas intended to improve the system. But no plan can succeed unless it starts with the people who actually provide the care.

Right now, many health-care workers feel they are being asked to carry more responsibility while receiving less support.

Until the province addresses staffing shortages, retention, and working conditions, the promise of a new health-care strategy risks sounding more like a slogan than a solution.

Because at the end of the day, health care simply does not happen without health-care workers.