College of Medicine gets $20 million from province

Cash comes at key time as school is facing accreditation review

The provincial government has reversed yet another piece of its spring budget, pledging to reinstate $20 million for the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Medicine.

In March, the Saskatchewan Party government slashed funding to the U of S by 5.6 per cent and instructed the institution to direct $20 million of its $294-million operating grant to the College of Medicine.

On Thursday, Advanced Education Minister Kevin Doherty reversed the edict, pledging an additional $20 million to the college.

Making the announcement at the college, Doherty said the decision was a “result of our government’s due diligence.”

The funding for the college “will help ensure that they remain an accredited medical school to train the next generation of physicians to serve the health care needs of the people of this province,” he said.

Prior to the announcement, the medical school had expected to be $17-million in the red this year, which would have brought its total deficit to $57 million.

The looming deficit was all the more worrying because the college — which has twice been placed on probation by accreditation authorities — is scheduled for an accreditation review next month.

“I’m confident that the restoration of these funds, along with the hard work and intense focus of the College of Medicine faculty and staff, will contribute to success during this upcoming accreditation review,” U of S president Peter Stoicheff told media.

Since the provincial budget was released in March, the U of S has cut salaries and benefits of senior leaders, offered buyouts, closed the International Centre for Northern Governance and Development and slashed funding to individual colleges, notably the College of Agriculture and Bioresources, which is taking an 11 per cent funding cut.

Now that it no longer needs to direct $20 million of its funding grant to the medical school, Stoicheff would not say what — if any — planned cuts will be halted.

“(The $20 million) being restored still means that we are dealing with a financial reality, but we’re dealing with it, we’re managing it,” he said. “No, it won’t change our plans in that regard. We were always working with a minus 5.6 per cent budget. As I’ve always said, that won’t change who we are, that won’t define who we are.”

A previous report on the medical school’s financial situation said it has created “unhealthy tensions” on campus. Stoicheff said he doesn’t see this as being the case.

“I wouldn’t characterize them really as tensions, but there are inevitably discussions that go on among deans and others who are all representing their parts of the university and the fact that we are not worrying about a $20 million addition to the deficit will go a very long way toward us being able to continue to work together,” he said.

This is not the first time the provincial government has backtracked on cuts laid out in its spring budget.

This summer, it reversed a decision to cut $4.8 million in funding for the province’s libraries and scaled back cuts that had been announced for funeral services for people in poverty.