The provincial government’s plan to reduce the surgical backlogs in Saskatchewan is facing opposition from NDP leader Carla Beck.

Beck said the province has a surgical backlog that is greater now than at any time during the pandemic. The government announced a private surgery plan as part of an effort to reduce the backlog.

Opposition leader Beck spoke about some other solutions.

“One of the easiest ones I think that we can point to would be that instead of the postings that we see within health care in this province right now, which are largely part time or temporary, is to start posting full-time permanent positions,” she said.

Beck is also asking why the province isn’t expanding operating and diagnostic hours . The Sask Health Authority is exploring sending patients out of province for his and knee replacements, as well as private sector options.
“Right now we’ve got 36 communities in this province that are either hospital closures or service disruptions, and nothing about the current plan that the minister has put forward… does anything to identify solutions,” Beck said.

Beck said the idea of reducing a surgical backlog by using the private sector isn’t a new one.

“This is something they’ve tried before, set targets and have failed,” she said. “We saw privatization within the MRI system and we didn’t see any reduction in the backlogs there.”

They want the government to bolster the public system here rather than sending people out of province or sending a request for proposal for private health care.

The opposition also said Health Minister Paul Merriman hasn’t had a media conference in public since May, all while the province’s expectant mothers are facing an epidural shortage, the emergence of monkeypox and hospitals are, in the words of opposition health critic Vicki Mowat, ‘bursting at the seams.”