Health Human Resources Action Plan two-year anniversary
September marks the two-year milestone of the launch of Saskatchewan’s Health Human Resources (HHR) Action Plan to recruit, train, incentivize and retain health-care workers across the province.
Since its introduction in September 2022, the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) has seen tremendous progress in strengthening and stabilizing our health-care workforce, including:
- Hiring highly sought-after specialized health-care providers, such as a pediatric gastroenterologist, four new psychiatrists and two perfusionists
- Hiring over 1,400 recent nursing graduates;
- Hiring 350 hard-to-recruit positions in over 50 rural and remote communities;
- Hiring 245 new and enhanced full-time permanent positions in high-priority occupations; and
- Supporting the creation of approximately 870 new training seats in 33 health-care programs at post-secondary institutions across the province.
- Introducing five new training programs in Saskatchewan: Diagnostic Medical Sonography, Occupational Therapy, Physician Assistants, Respiratory Therapy, and Speech Language Therapy.
“I want to acknowledge the dedication of our health-care teams who care deeply for our patients, clients and residents,” said SHA CEO Andrew Will at an anniversary event held on September 23 at Saskatchewan Polytechnic in Regina. “Together we remain committed to setting up our team for success, ensuring they have the tools and support necessary to enhance health care and improve health outcomes for the people of Saskatchewan.”
Saskatchewan Health Authority CEO Andrew Will, with Internationally Educated Nurse (IEN) Yagi Edrozo, who started working with the SHA four months ago in the Cardiac Surveillance Unit.