WESTERN PRODUCER — The Saskatchewan government is offering family physicians a $200,000 incentive to move to rural and northern areas and stay for at least five years.
Premier Scott Moe announced the increase to the existing incentive at the recent Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities convention.
But the government also said it will incorporate physician assistants into the provincial health-care system and they could make a difference in rural areas.
Health minister Paul Merriman, in response to a comment during the convention bearpit session with cabinet ministers, described physician assistants as similar to army medics.
“This is somebody that comes out of that type of training, like a paramedic but more of an army medic, that can do almost everything a doctor can do,” he said, adding that a doctor has to sign off on the treatment through a phone or video call.
He said this type of staffing, sometimes referred to as shadow doctors, is new in Saskatchewan but is being done in Manitoba and Ontario.
“These physician assistants can operate very independently,” he said. “We’re working very hard to get those physician assistants specifically to go out to rural Saskatchewan but also to work in our emergency rooms because that’s exactly what they’re trained for.”
Moe also said the province is expanding nurse practitioner seats and encouraged anyone who wants to work as a nurse practitioner in the province to contact the health minister.
“All of these are combined to provide access to services in rural communities but also to increase the access that we have in our urban communities,” he said.
The comments on physician assistants came after Cody Jordison, from the RM of Lumsden, urged money be spent on modernizing the system.
“The health-care funding increase is appreciated but you continue to fund an outdated model,” he said. “We need to train rural RNs to be nurse practitioners. We need advanced care paramedics in rural ERs, and we need to modernize equipment to connect rural facilities with acute care centres. We’re spending an awful lot of money for a doctor to stay here for five years when we have the opportunity to recruit nurse practitioners who already live here or want to come home.”
Moe said he agreed.
Health care was a major concern of SARM delegates heading into the convention. President Ray Orb, who was re-elected by acclamation, said rural Saskatchewan wants more attention paid to the lack of doctors, nurses and other staff, and to keeping emergency rooms open.
The Saskatchewan Union of Nurses last week said that emergency rooms in cities were collapsing.
The Rural Physician Incentive Program changes take effect April 1. The previous incentive, launched in 2013-14, was offered over four years and provided $47,000 to recipients.
During his speech, Moe acknowledged health-care staffing is an issue throughout the province.
“The shortage is most felt in rural areas,” he said.
He described the new incentive as an ambitious solution.
It pays $15,000 in each of the first two years, $20,000 in the third year, and $75,000 in each of the last two years.
Eligibility has also been expanded beyond new graduates to include physicians practising in rural and northern communities who have been assessed through the Saskatchewan International Physician Practice Assessment program.
The program doesn’t include Regina, Saskatoon and its bedroom communities, or communities with regional hospitals, which are Lloydminster, Moose Jaw, North Battleford, Prince Albert, Swift Current and Yorkton.
According to the government, the program has supported 115 doctors since it began.
Moe also announced the revenue sharing amount for rural, urban and northern municipalities this year is a record $297 million, up 13 percent from last year. More details were to be released in the March 22 budget. Revenue sharing is based on three-quarters of one point of the provincial sales tax paid in the previous two years.
