Significant budget investments support continued progress on Sask.’s Health Human Resources Action Plan

The Government of Saskatchewan continues to build on the successful foundation of the province’s Health Human Resources (HHR) Action Plan by investing over $141 million in this year’s budget.

“Continued investment into our ambitious HHR Action Plan ensures Saskatchewan remains an attractive place for health care professionals to live and work,” Health Minister Everett Hindley said. “I am pleased to see steady progress being made on multiple initiatives to recruit, train, incentivize and retain more health professionals, strengthen health care teams and deliver improved patient care to residents in communities across the province.”

Physician Recruitment and Retention Several new incentives are available to support recruitment and retention of specialists in high demand:

•An incentive package for anesthesia, which includes a relocation grant, as well as an annual incentive of $200,000 over five years for regional service and $100,000 over five years for urban service;

•An incentive of $200,000 over five years for regional service for psychiatry; and

•An incentive of $200,000 over five years for breast and interventional radiology in approved sites.

An enhanced Rural Physician Incentive of up to $200,000 over five years has been offered since April 2023 to physicians who practice in rural and remote communities. To date, 256 potentially eligible applications have been received, and 118 of these have been approved for payment. Training

Work continues on the implementation of the 550-seat training expansion that began in 2023 in critical health training programs. As of January 2024, approximately 80 per cent of the new seats were made available for the 202324 academic year, with more becoming available this year.

Further investments in this year’s budget will support an additional 66 seats distributed across six training programs, including Registered Nursing, Registered Psychiatric Nursing and critical interprovincial training programs: Cardiology Technology, Diagnostic Cardiac Sonography, Nuclear Medicine Technology and Environmental Public Health.

Also, four new health training programs will be added in Saskatchewan: Occupational Therapy, Speech Language Pathology, Physician Assistant and Respiratory Therapy.

A $1.5 million investment this year will support a new incentive for encouraging students enrolled in health care training programs in other provinces where Saskatchewan has invested in specific training seats to come home. The incentive will provide up to $15,000 per year of study for up to two years, in exchange for a three-year return-of-service agreement to work in Saskatchewan.

The number of undergraduate seats at the College of Medicine will increase from 104 to 108 for the fall 2024 intake, while postgraduate residency seats will increase from 128 to 140. Eight of these seats are targeted to urban family medicine and will be implemented by 2025.

The other four are targeted to specialty seats, such as the new Anesthesia and Dermatology seats in Regina. The College posted 135 seats in the 2024 residency match, which is currently underway.