Province’s plan to reduce surgical wait times raises questions for health-care workers

The Saskatchewan government’s plan for cutting into provincial surgical wait times comes with more questions than answers for the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses (SUN).

The province laid out some ideas in a media release Monday, including potentially having some patients volunteer to leave Saskatchewan to get the hip and knee replacement surgery they need.

Denise Dick, SUN’s first vice-president, said she’s confused with how this could work.

“What all is involved in that? How would that process happen?” she asked.

“We know there is going to be some parameters for some people. What all is funded? Would (the government) support them to have all of their care there? Do they get their pre- and post-care there? Will they be part of the public system when they come back? How is that going to impact the patient overall?”

The provincial government says as of right now, it did 5,000 more surgeries during the first five months of 2022 than the preceding five months in 2021. It adds the goal is to complete 7,000 more surgeries in 2022-23 than it did before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the province.

With so many surgeries being completed, Dick is wondering why the government would even consider suggesting some people get their surgeries out of province.

“Why wouldn’t we keep building on the momentum that they’ve started here getting us back on track, using our public system and using the resources we have instead of our first option being sending people out of province?” she asked.

In its media release, the government did say it would be issuing a Request for Proposals in August to build a standalone orthopedic surgery facility in the province. It would focus on increasing operating room and bed capacity for in-patient joint replacements, as well as a variety of day surgery procedures.

While that sounds like good news, Dick said it doesn’t quite solve the government’s current problem.

“That’s not a short-term fix, that’s a long-term fix. You don’t just build a building overnight — and then you have to staff it,” she explained.

“We already know that we have a staffing shortage in this province, so where all of a sudden are they going to get the staff to fill that? It might be pulling them from the public system to get them into this private system. So what are they actually accomplishing?

“We need a health human resource strategy in this province,” Dick added. “We need (the government) to talk to the stakeholders (and) talk to the nurses and get their perspectives for how we can make this system better.”