Health care workers in Sask. brace for ‘patient first’ changes

As Keenan Sorokon explains, health care workers are weighing in on the province's plan to tackle wait times and improve access across Saskatchewan.

Olivia Bolton isn’t so sure about the provincial government’s plans to revamp healthcare in Saskatchewan.

The continuing care assistant has had her hourly wage rise by $3 after 15 years of work. Exhaustion and burnout are growing concerns as her colleagues continually work overtime to provide the care needed, and she feels those concerns from health care workers like herself are being ignored in the Patient First Health Care Plan.

“They play off the fact that we care,” Bolton said on Tuesday. “Yesterday alone, we had nine people on overtime that we’re working double shifts because they didn’t want to see the patients go without.”

On Monday, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe spoke at the Saskatoon Urgent Care Centre in Saskatoon, which is currently under construction, to unveil the Patients First Health Care Plan. The wide-ranging strategy is aiming to solve longstanding issues of accessing primary care and reducing wait times.

As part of the more than 50 action items, the province aims to perform 450,000 surgeries over four years and reduce wait times to a 90-day target. It also plans to open up the scope of works for a number of different professionals.

• ‘Right Care, Right Place, Right Time’: Sask. announces Patients First Health Care Plan

“It’s kind of something that we’ve been advocating for, asking for, and we’re really, really excited to see that our province is listening,” said Toni Giraudier, the president of Saskatchewan Association of Nurse Practitioners.

Nurse practitioners are at the cornerstone of the plan, with the province looking to hire plenty more and place them in a number of different settings to allow residents to see them as a first point of contact in the system.

The province plans to have more nurse practitioners in emergency rooms, urgent care centres and long term care homes. To achieve this, the province has opened up roughly 100 training spots, with 83 dedicated to Saskatchewan residents. Since 2022, the number of training seats has nearly doubled.

The province is also incentivizing registered nurses to become nurse practitioners with $78,000 over two years to help ease financial burdens over the two years of necessary schooling.

“Basically, anything that you will be going to see a general practitioner for, your nurse practitioner is able to do,” Giraudier said. “We need more nurse practitioners, we need more health care professionals, we need more physicians to kind of accomplish this plan.”

Pharmacists will also be due for a change if the plans proceed.

“We’re really happy that they’re looking at expanding our scope of work that we’re trained to do, because I think the impact is quite significant,” Pharmacy Association of Saskatchewan CEO Michael Fougere said.

A pilot program launched in 2025 saw 22 pharmacies across the province be able to assess, test, and prescribe for things like strep throat or ear infections. The program is expected to be expanded.

Fougere says other minor ailments may be included as well to keep more people out of waiting rooms during cold and flu season.

“Which actually allows the testing to be done at the site in the pharmacy, and you can find out whether you have strep throat in seven minutes, as opposed to going through the lab,” Fougere explained.

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Other professionals are also expected to be tapped for added work.

“We’re looking to expand scope with dietitians, optometrists, potentially chiropractors, nurses, so we’re going to have conversations with all of those regulatory bodies,” Minister of Health Jeremy Cockrill said Monday.

With many of those discussions already underway, Bolton is still waiting to see how and if these plans will affect her workload.

Joined by NDP Health Critic Meara Conway on Tuesday, Bolton outlined her concerns while Conway tempered optimism, showing “Patients First” plans from the Sask. Party in 2009, 2012 and 2016.

In 2012, the plan called for many of the same things, but Conway says the measures of success have changed.

“They have walked back most measurable goals and targets, including for surgeries. In 2012, they made the promise that everyone would have access to diagnostics within a week,” Conway said.

“They’ve now walked that back to within 60 days for 90 per cent of people by 2028.”

Specifics of the plan and how much several of these initiatives will cost will have to wait until at least next Wednesday when Finance Minister Jim Reiter will detail the 2026 provincial budget.