Federal bill would give Saskatchewan $61M to address surgical backlog

Saskatchewan’s push to reduce its surgical wait list got a nudge from the federal government on Friday.

The feds introduced Bill C-17 which, if passed, would give a one-time top-up of $2 billion to provinces and territories. According to a government media release, the money would all jurisdictions to address “immediate pandemic-related health-care system pressures, particularly the backlogs of surgeries, medical procedures and diagnostics.”

The money is to be distributed equally per capita to the provinces and territories. The feds say Saskatchewan would receive $61,759,000.

“Today’s investment would help our provincial and territorial partners expedite the processing of surgeries that had been delayed due to COVID-19,” federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said in the release.

“This is a significant first step on the road to addressing the major health-care challenges lying ahead of us, including repairing the damages caused by the pandemic and upholding the principles of universality and accessibility that are so dear to Canadians in the long term.”

In its 2022-23 budget released Wednesday, the Saskatchewan government said it was putting an increase of $21.6 million toward the surgical backlog. The government’s goal is to get the wait list back to pre-pandemic levels by March of 2025.

“Working to address the surgical backlog is a priority of the province, and we welcome additional investment in this area to complement the funding announced in the provincial budget this week,” the Saskatchewan Party government said in a statement.

“This one-time investment does not replace or address the call from all premiers for the federal government to engage with provinces on long-term funding through the Canada Health Transfer.”

Provinces have been asking the federal government to provide an increased share of health spending on a long-term basis so they can make more sustainable changes to address the stress on their health-care systems.

The Saskatchewan government recently announced the opening of a new surgical theatre at Regina’s Pasqua Hospital, which health officials hope will increase the number of operations done by 1,000 a year. Even so, Health Minister Paul Merriman has said the surgical wait list in the province will take years to whittle down.

“As we announced last year, we’re adding 7,000 more surgeries, so we’re going from just under 90,000 to 97,000 this year (in) planned surgeries,” he said Wednesday. “The year after that, we’ll be going up to 13,000 additional surgeries.

“We do have probably 35,000 surgeries that are backlogged right now and this is our process that we’re going to be able to start to deal with that. But to deal with it, we also need the people, so that’s why we’re executing our human resource strategy to bring some more people into Saskatchewan.”

The federal government said the COVID pandemic has delayed about 700,000 surgeries and procedures across the country. The government said the provinces and territories can use the new funding “to support their own unique circumstances, including strengthening the health workforce.”

The Saskatchewan government’s budget included funds to recruit health-care professionals who it hopes can help address the surgical backlog.

“It would be very, very difficult to have the capacity to address the entire surgical wait list in one year,” Finance Minister Donna Harpauer said before delivering the budget. “It takes a lot of people, a lot of highly trained health-care professionals, so we also need to build the health-care professionals as well that can address that.”

— With files from The Canadian Press