NAME CHANGE GAME CHANGE?
U of S college eyes new programs
A decision to rename the University of Saskatchewan’s School of Physical Therapy signals that the institution has not abandoned its ambitions to launch occupational therapy and speech language pathology programs, said the associate dean of the school.
The U of S University Council voted last month to rechristen the School of Physical Therapy the School of Rehabilitation Science as of May 1.
Associate dean Liz Harrison said that “positions (the school) well” to expand its mandate and look into starting occupational therapy and speech language pathology programs within the next five to seven years.
Occupational therapists help people perform activities that are required in daily life while speech language pathologists treat speech, communication and swallowing disorders.
U of S faculty have developed proposals outlining how occupational therapy and speech language pathology schools could be set up and run at the institution, but Harrison said the cost of doing so is “substantial” and there’s never been money to act on these plans. With renovations underway at the university’s health sciences building, though, she said the time is ripe to look at how occupational therapy and speech language pathology might fit into new spaces.
“The issue is: Will there be other initiatives that come on in the next five to seven years as well that require those resources?” Harrison said.
When the U of S opened its School of Physical Therapy in 1965, there were expectations that an occupational therapy program would eventually follow. But there weren’t enough people in the province qualified to teach occupational therapy back then and, by the time that number expanded, there wasn’t funding available, Harrison said.
Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador are the only provinces without a school of occupational therapy. In the absence of such a program, the Government of Saskatchewan pays thousands of dollars every year to fund 15 spots at the University of Alberta’s school of occupational therapy for Saskatchewan residents.
But not everyone who goes to school in Alberta comes home. The Saskatchewan Society of Occupational Therapists’ (SSOT) spring 2016 labour market report said that only between seven and 10 of Saskatchewan residents who graduate from the U of A every year return to work in the province (that’s between 47 and 67 per cent; by comparison, roughly 80 per cent of physical therapists who train in Saskatchewan stay in the province).
Perhaps because of this, Saskatchewan has the lowest number of occupational therapists per capita in Canada — 30 occupational therapists per 100,000 people in 2014, below the national average of 42 occupational therapists per 100,000 people according to the SSOT.
The society said more than 130 occupational therapists are needed immediately to bring Saskatchewan up to par with the rest of Canada.
SSOT executive director Sherry Just said up to 20 per cent of positions for occupational therapists in rural and remote areas are vacant and wait lists to see occupational therapists in some centres stretch for more than a year.
Just said having a school of occupational therapy in Saskatchewan would increase the number of occupational therapists working in the province and subsequently improve the care they can provide for people including senior citizens, people with disabilities and people who are recovering from injuries.
“The case loads are really high for occupational therapists in the province,” Just said. “A lot of OTs are just basically meeting the basic needs for a lot of their clients and they’re not able to develop more. In other provinces where they have a lot of OTs, the OTs can extend into other areas of practice that just don’t get met in our province.”
And the demand for occupational therapists will likely increase as the population ages, said SSOT president Sonia Brooks.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we have senior citizens who are wanting to sky dive, who are wanting to ride (a) horse into their 80s,” she said. “They’ve enjoyed a great standard of living and they want to be able to maintain that into their golden years.”
Unlike with occupational therapy, the province does not fund spots for Saskatchewan residents to study speech language pathology elsewhere. Many speech language pathologists in the province have studied at University of Alberta, University of British Columbia or Minot State University in North Dakota.
Meredith Wright, the director of Speech Language Pathology Audiology Canada, said there are enough people wanting to study speech language pathology and enough demand for the profession that a program at the U of S could do well.
“There are a lot of people who want to become speech language pathologists and there are a limited number of programs in Canada,” she said.
“Having a program in Saskatchewan would keep potential people who are interested in being speech language pathologists in the province, but it would also attract other people interested in becoming speech language pathologists to the province to study and potentially they might stay as well, so that’s definitely an advantage for Saskatchewan.”
If the opportunity arises, Harrison said she wants occupational therapy and speech language pathology programs to be developed in tandem, which would ultimately result in cost savings and more collaboration between the schools.
“The minute you put programs together, oh wow. Bigger class sizes, but shared curriculum, shared admissions, shared program administration, shared space. So the benefit of bringing two on together is that then they get built together from the outset,” she said. “Cost sharing and opportunities that should be good models for when these practitioners also go out and work in health-care environments where we actually work together and so that’s a real benefit as well.”