Saskatchewan’s Costly Health-Care Blunder and the Workers Left Behind

The Saskatchewan government and the Saskatchewan Health Authority are facing heavy criticism after spending roughly $272 million on the failed Administrative Information and Management System, known as AIMS—an ambitious technology project meant to streamline payroll and scheduling across the province’s health-care system. Instead, the program turned into one of Saskatchewan’s most expensive administrative disasters.

The government has now instructed the SHA to stop using AIMS for staff scheduling and return to the old system, effectively conceding that the project has failed. Health-care workers, many of whom struggled through endless scheduling errors, pay problems, and system outages, say the move comes far too late and at too high a cost. What was pitched as a modernization initiative has become, in their eyes, an expensive monument to mismanagement.

Union leaders are furious. Members of CUPE 5430, representing thousands of health-care workers, have now gone more than three years without a new contract. They’ve watched public money vanish into a broken computer system while their own wages have stagnated, workloads have grown heavier, and morale has hit new lows. Rallies across the province have drawn growing crowds of frustrated workers demanding fair treatment and fair pay.

They argue that SHA and the provincial government are playing hardball at the bargaining table, dragging negotiations out and offering minimal wage adjustments that don’t reflect the cost of living or the strain these workers face daily. As one rally sign put it, “We care for you — who cares for us?”

What makes it worse, according to the union, is that while front-line workers wait years for fair compensation, top SHA executives have quietly enjoyed double-digit raises. That’s salt in the wound for the very people keeping hospitals, long-term care homes, and clinics functioning through chronic understaffing and burnout.

Critics say the government’s handling of both AIMS and its negotiations with CUPE 5430 reflects a troubling pattern: millions poured into failed management schemes while the people who actually make the health-care system work are left undervalued and ignored. The union is calling for accountability—not just for the money wasted on AIMS, but for the years of disrespect shown toward health-care workers who have held the system together despite it all.

For many, this isn’t just about contracts or computer systems. It’s about priorities. And right now, those priorities seem to be failing the people who care for Saskatchewan every single day.