Saskatchewan expands incentive program aimed at filling rural health-care jobs

Nine more Sask. communities can now offer up to $50,000 in incentives to recruit health workers, expanding the total to 82. Wayne Mantyka reports.

Nine more Saskatchewan communities are now eligible to participate in the province’s rural and remote recruitment incentive program, aimed at attracting health-care workers to underserved areas.

The expansion brings the total number of eligible communities to 82. Newly added communities include Beauval, Buffalo Narrows, Carlyle, Creighton, Craik, Davidson, Ituna, Montmartre and Macklin.

The program allows communities to offer incentive packages of up to $50,000 to certain high-priority health workers in exchange for a three-year return-in-service commitment. It is supported by an $8.7 million investment in the province’s 2026-27 budget to maintain and expand the program.

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“As we add more communities, add more facilities to this incentive, it’s really creating more incentives for kids who are from these communities or are interested in a life in rural or northern Saskatchewan to take an opportunity, a really good health care career,” Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill said Monday.

Communities already participating in the program have reported reduced reliance on contract nursing, the reopening of previously closed acute care beds, fewer emergency room disruptions and expanded capacity.

Local leaders say the addition is welcome news as communities continue to face staffing shortages.

“I’m quite happy to hear that we’re now getting the program. We’ve had trouble especially with RNs, keeping our RNs in Davidson and we have shortages, so this is hopefully going to help,” said Davidson Mayor Keith LePoudre.

The province’s health-care recruitment agency is also promoting the program at this week’s Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA) convention in Regina, offering guidance to communities on how to attract and retain workers long-term.

“Some communities have like recruitment committees and so what they do is when the practitioner is going to be arriving in their community, they really surround that practitioner. Some provide housing. A lot of them make sure that the families are connected and get to the proper schools that they need to,” explained Condyu Froehlich of the Saskatchewan Health Authority Recruitment Agency.

The recruitment incentive is part of Saskatchewan’s broader Health Human Resources Action Plan, which has seen more than 7,500 health-care professionals join the provincial system since its launch.

The 2026-27 provincial budget includes more than $199 million, a 27.6 per cent increase, to support the plan, which focuses on expanding the workforce, stabilizing rural services and improving access to care across the province.

Officials say the next step will be determining how many of the more than 530 recruits choose to remain in their communities beyond the initial three-year commitment.