Surgery wait times, new beds major focuses in Sask.'s health budget

The Saskatchewan government's 2025-26 budget promises to decrease surgery wait times by spending $15 million to perform 450,000 procedures over four years.

Doctors in the province say that despite the increase of funds, wait times will still be high for some surgeries.

"Around joint replacement, there are some surgeons with long wait lists," Michael Kelly, head of surgery for the Saskatchewan Health Authority and the University of Saskatchewan, told CBC. "Some of the ear, nose and throat surgeries, there's longer wait lists. We've made a lot of good progress around access to cancer care."

Kelly said cancer care should be prioritized over elective surgery, but that he's hopeful wait times will decrease overall.

Surgical spending in the budget is part of more than $8 billion for health, a 6.4 per cent increase from last year.

Other health spending includes:

• $7.6 million for enhanced pediatric care, including staffing the neonatal intensive care unit in Prince Albert.
• $6.6 million for HealthLine 811's virtual ER physician program to support 25 rural emergency department locations.
• $4.3 million to fund the province's kidney health programs.
• $2 million for enhanced laboratory medicine services.
• $1.9 million to complete and fully staff the new Breast Health Centre in Regina.

Funding will also go toward helping more people across the province connect to a primary health care provider.

The Saskatchewan Health Authority will receive a $261 million increase, bringing its total to $4.94 billion.

More beds at Saskatoon City Hospital

The budget included $30 million to enact the provincial government's recently announced plan to open more than 100 new beds at Saskatoon City Hospital.

"Anything that we can do to support health care right now is going to be important to the residents of our city," Cynthia Block, the mayor of Saskatoon, told CBC on Wednesday. "We service areas that go well beyond our city, so it's really crucial that we have that type of investment."

The beds will be opened by converting existing spaces into inpatient units.

The province also repeated its commitment to opening urgent care centres — meant to divert pressure from emergency rooms — in Moose Jaw, Prince Albert and North Battleford. Secondary urgent care centres are also planned for Saskatoon and Regina.

Regina will also receive a robot-assisted surgery program at its Pasqua Hospital.

The budget will also be supporting the creation of 500 addiction recovery spaces throughout the province.

Linda Renkas with CUPE local 5430, which represents health workers in Saskatchewan, said there should be more of a focus on staffing before building new care centres and that the budget should have focused more on staff retention.

"The urgent care centre was opened here in Regina last year — we're still not fully operational and we're going to build more," Renkas said. "We've got to make sure we have workers first."

Minister of Health Jeremy Cockrill said Regina's urgent care centre has been successful in treating patients and that other cities should have access to centres like it.

Cockrill said that nearly 30,000 patients have been seen since the urgent care centre opened in Regina last year.

"It's that kind of example that ensures that our health-care workers are seeing the right patients at the right time and that patients have an appropriate wait time for the care that they need," Cockrill said.

Saskatchewan Opposision NDP Leader Carla Beck said the provincial government has not done anything to address urgent problems in the health-care system.

"We're flying women out of the province," Beck said. "We see hospitals in major centres operating as if they're in a mass casualty event."