Expanding scope of practice, private surgeries part of new Sask. health care plan

The Saskatchewan government is putting forward a new plan with the goal of giving more people better access to health care.

The Patients First Health Care Plan has more than 50 actions it plans to achieve in order to succeed.

“We have been listening to Saskatchewan residents and the two main concerns we have heard are that people want access to a primary care provider, and they want diagnostics and surgeries in a timelier manner,” Premier Scott Moe said in a news release.

“That’s what the Patients First Health Care Plan will do — deliver the right care in the right place at the right time.”

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The event took place at the new location for Saskatoon’s urgent care centre, currently under construction, on Monday. It’s slated to open early in 2027.

The province has previously announced five new urgent care centres are in development for Moose Jaw, North Battleford and Prince Albert.

Regina and Saskatoon are both slated to have a second urgent care centre built in each city.

Expanding private partnerships

The province said it will expand its partnership with Surgical Centres Inc. to conduct more publicly funded surgeries through the plan.

Surgical Centres Inc. operates Prairieview Surgical Centre in Saskatoon and Regina Surgical Centre, the government said in a statement.

The government said Surgical Centres Inc. will continue providing a wide range of day surgical procedures — including general surgery, orthopedics, ophthalmology, plastics and reconstructive surgery, ENT, pediatric dental/oral maxillofacial, urology, and vascular surgery.

The expanded scope now includes gynecology, it said.

“We’re going to continue to look for more opportunities to get those surgeries out of the hospital, free up our hospital operating rooms for more complex surgeries that maybe take longer, require a longer recovery time,” said Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill at the event.

Cockrill said there are also opportunities for more types of procedures and possibly more providers down the roads as well.

The premier said it wasn’t an open door to all surgeries being done in the private sector, but the minister wouldn’t name any specific surgery he wouldn’t consider farming out to private providers.

“There are some more complex procedures that we do and some more complex patients and those procedures likely belong in a tertiary hospital so that there’s that whole network of support,” he said.

Cockrill said he also believes there’s an opportunity for third-party diagnostics.

It said it will focus on early treatment to give patients more care options to lower the need for surgery, depending on the patient.

More than 100,000 surgeries were performed in the province last year, according to the province, up by 30 per cent since 2020.

The province had already announced it will not put a limit on the number of nurse practitioner contracts for Saskatchewan.

It also pledged support for “pilot team-based models” for nurse practitioners to hire other medical experts like nurses, dietitians, and occupational therapists.

The province said adding more nurse practitioners will streamline patient flow in urgent care centres and emergency rooms.

The government said it also plans to reduce new legislation to improve the “expansion of scope” for medical professionals. It would include broadening roles for dietitians, optometrists, and pharmacists.

“Ensuring that everybody in Saskatchewan that’s already in our health-care system and those that we’re going to be recruiting and bringing into our health-care system can work to the highest possible scope right across Canada, right here in Saskatchewan,” explained Cockrill.

Health care worker recruitment

The province said it’s making a few changes going forward to recruit and retain health care workers. It will expand its Rural Physician Incentive Program to cities like Yorkton, Moose Jaw, and North Battleford.

The Rural and Remote Incentive for health care workers will also be broadened under the plan.

Moe said the recruitment challenges Saskatchewan is facing in health care are being faced by health-care systems across the country.

“(The health-care recruitment) challenge speaks to the importance of coming forward with this plan here today, which is the opening of a conversation which is going to continue with initiatives as we move forward which make sense, put patients first, improve the outcomes in our health care systems, support those that are offering those health care services in our system,” he said.

Twenty more medical training seats will be available at the College of Medicine. The new plan aims for a target of 95 per cent of medical students in the province being from Saskatchewan.

The province added that it hopes to inspire high school students to enter medical positions. It will work with school divisions and the Saskatchewan Distance Learning Centre to introduce early exploration and training programs.

Both Moe and Cockrill said impacts are already being felt by some of the programs the province has put in place, but some will take longer to be felt, like expanding training seats.

“It’s about continuously improving the health-care system and putting in place by listening to people and patients across this province, putting in place and building on the initiatives that are working and make sense, and elevating people’s access to primary health care providers, elevating their opportunity for a shorter wait time for surgery and for diagnostics,” said Moe.

From left: Saskatchewan Minister of Social Services, Terry Jenson; Minister of Advanced Education and Labour Relations and Workplace Safety, Ken Cheveldayoff; Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, Seniors and Rural and Remote Health, Lori Carr; Premier Scott Moe; Minister of Health, Jeremy Cockrill; and MLA for Moosomin-Montmartre and Legislative Secretary to the Minister of Health, Kevin Weedmark pictured at the currently under construction Saskatoon Urgent Care Centre on March 9, 2026. (Libby Gray/650 CKOM)

Following a review this year, the Virtual Physician Program will also see expansion under the province’s new plan.

The program is geared to attracting doctors to rural and northern areas.

A province-wide safety review is also currently being conducted for provincial health care facilities.

The review came after a recent spur of incidents at hospitals, including a patients death after an altercation with security at Saskatoon’s Royal University Hospital.

The plan also outlined enhanced security services in eight more health care facilities in La Loche, Shellbrook, Swift Current, Moose Jaw, Weyburn, Nipawin, Melfort, and Kamsack.

The province has already added metal detectors into hospitals in Regina and Saskatoon, as well as Prince Albert and the Battlefords.

NDP says plan is recycled

The NDP’s health critic, Meara Conway, pointed to plans from Sask. Party governments in 2009 and 2015 which also talked about being patient-first and has the same themes, however, she said the government is only moving backwards.

Conway challenged the health minister to point to much new in the plan at all.

She did say the NDP believes there is a place for virtual care in the system, and suggested the government’s interest in utilizing nurse practitioners is long overdue.

“The evidence on the benefit of utilizing nurse practitioners in a team-based setting, we’ve had that evidence for decades,” said Conway.

On the issue of private surgical care, NDP Leader Carla Beck said it’s not an ideological issue, but instead needs to be measured by whether people are getting care.

“People are going too long without the care they need, too many people cannot get the care they need, not even just close to home, but in the province — we see women who are having to fly to Calgary, we’re paying 10 times what it would cost here in the public system to deliver that care,” said Beck.

When asked what the NDP would do differently, Beck said her team has been working on its health-care consultation and some of their recommendations will be delivered soon.

Pharmacists welcome changes

The Pharmacy Association of Saskatchewan said in a statement that increasing pharmacist delivery of primary care services by expanding their scope of practice helps to ensure patients receive timely access to care.

The association said that results from the pilot project in which pharmacists are assessing and treating strep throat and ear infections had seen vpositive results, with more than 4200 of these services being offered to
patients in their home communities.

Saskatchewan’s more than 2200 pharmacy professionals are located in 425 pharmacies in 126
communities across the province and offer an important solution to the province’s heath care access
challenges in urban, rural and northern Saskatchewan.

“Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians are always willing to help in improving access to care for their
patients. There is more work to be done, but this is an exciting step in addressing the province’s health
car access challenges,” said Michael Fougere, CEO of the association in the statement.

— with files from CJME News and 980 CJME’s Lisa Schick