This week the Saskatchewan 2025-26 budget was released and with it comes a promise of an over $8-billion investment in health care.
It marks a 6.4 per cent increase from last year. But the NDP say the increase doesn’t tell the whole story.
NDP leader Carla Beck said last year, the provincial government allocated $8.022 billion to healthcare. This year, they have budgeted only $8.004 billion—a reduction of $17.1 million
“They’ve cut health care and refused to listen at a time when more and more Saskatchewan people are going without the care that they need,” Beck said at an event Friday.
The province said some of the funding will be used to address capacity and staffing pressures, but health care workers at the NDP conference Friday say this isn’t enough.
“I think we need to have more Saskatchewan students going into health care,” Dr. Adam Ogieglo said. “Focusing on retention (is important). There are very few retention benefits available.”
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Saskatchewan finance minister Jim Reiter said the province is actively recruiting and training health care staff.
“We have a recruitment agency that’s dealing with that,” Reiter said. “Many health care professionals and training seats have been increased. For example, for doctors, ten more training seats or residency seats are put in place.”
Reiter referenced the budget’s plan for accelerating hiring and growth of the health-care workforce through a multi-year health human resources action plan — recruit, train, re-train and incentivize working in health care.
The University of Saskatchewan’s college of medicine will be receiving an increase of $7.4 million in funding to add 10 training seats for family medicine, anesthesia, plastic surgery and other specialties, creating a total of 150 new seats.
The government will be providing a $4.9 million increase to add 65 new and enhanced permanent full-time nursing positions in rural and northern locations to improve nursing stability and reduce the need for contract nurses.
Additionally, the budget will provide a $94.6 million increase in funding for physician services to recruit and retrain doctors, as well as funding for negotiated Saskatchewan medical association fee increases, increased utilization of services and additional physicians.
Discussion over the last few days has also surrounded the province’s push for more Urgent Care Centres.
Regina’s, which opened in 2024, saw nearly 30,000 patients, according to minister of health Jeremy Cockrill.
Saskatoon’s urgent care centre is currently under construction, but Ogieglo argues the province should be finding ways to staff current facilities first and foremost.
“There’s constantly challenges in making our schedule and keeping our doors open, and so if we are provided with additional support at a fraction of the cost of building a new building, we would be able to meet that need,” Ogieglo said.
The Saskatchewan Union of Nurses has called the budget “profoundly disappointing,” while CUPE 5430, the union representing over 14,000 Saskatchewan health care workers, said the budget does nothing to improve wages and working conditions for current healthcare staff.
— with files from Global News’ Destiny Meilleur
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