It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, January 08, 2022
NO DISTRIBUTION EFFORT Florida's Desantis: 'Lack of demand' reason 1M COVID-19 tests expired By UPI Staff Governor Ron DeSantis acknowledged this week that between 800,000 and 1 million COVID-19 tests sat expired in a state warehouse because of a "lack of demand." File Photo By Gary I Rothstein/UPI | License Photo
Jan. 7 (UPI) -- Florida governor Ron DeSantis said Friday that 1 million COVID-19 test kits expired because of a lack of demand in the state in September, October and November.
There was widespread desire for tests in December as COVID-19 case counts in the state skyrocketed and lines for tests stretched for hours, but Guthrie and DeSantis said there hadn't been a demand for them.
The comment came as the governor announced a plan to get 1 million tests to distributed to Florida's seniors.
"Having a stockpile was the right thing to do," Desantis said Friday during a press conference in Lake Butler, Fla.
"We just had a lack of demand that happened in September, October, November. Nobody was requesting them. They would've been used had we had Omicron then," Desantis said.
Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried accused the governor of stockpiling soon-to-be-expired tests, an allegation DeSantis's office called "bizarre."
DeSantis said Thursday that there wasn't adequate staff on hand to distribute the tests.
Testing sites across the state have been overwhelmed for weeks with people looking to get screened for COVID-19 because of the contagious Omicron variant.
Parents, teachers concerned by Quebec's plan to reopen schools
Quebec says it still intends to reopen schools on Jan. 17, but some worry not enough has been done to ensure it will be safe for students.
Author of the article:
Jesse Feith • Montreal Gazette
Publishing date:
Jan 06, 2022 •
Lev Berner, a science teacher at Vincent Massey Collegiate in Montreal on Wednesday Jan. 5, 2022, has been teaching remotely due to the pandemic.PHOTO BY DAVE SIDAWAY /Montreal Gazette
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Though they understand the importance of in-person learning for children, parents and teachers expressed concern Wednesday over Quebec’s plan to reopen schools in two weeks.
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Despite the ongoing surge in COVID-19 cases, Quebec Education Minister Jean-François Roberge announced Wednesday the province still intends to have students back in class on Jan. 17.
But for some, reopening schools to students without added measures — such as improved ventilation or the N95 masks teachers have asked for — is too risky a move and one that could backfire.
“The risks are too high because of the sheer number of people in schools and the fact that we don’t have adequate protection,” said Lev Berner, a science teacher at Vincent Massey Collegiate in Rosemont. “If you get a high school student with Omicron inside a class, it is very unlikely that it doesn’t turn into something major.”
On Wednesday, Roberge said the province will prepare for the reopening by distributing 3.6 million rapid tests to elementary schools — five per month for every student — and adding 50,000 more carbon dioxide detectors in classrooms. Teachers and other school personnel will also be added to the priority groups that are eligible for PCR tests on Jan. 15, as will daycare staff.
Asked why he believes it will be safe to send students back to class in two weeks, Roberge said being safe “doesn’t mean that no one gets the flu or gets COVID-19. It means we’re doing all we can and following the recommendations of our experts.”
Sylvain Martel, of the Regroupement des comités de parents autonomes du Québec, said many of the group’s members were surprised by the announcement and had expected the return to class to be postponed.
Martel noted that when Quebec announced it was closing schools in December , the province was recording roughly 3,000 COVID-19 cases a day. As of Wednesday, it was averaging more than 15,000 new cases per day.
And while vaccination rates are high across Quebec, they remain lower among young children who’ve only been eligible for the shot since November. Roughly 57 per cent of children aged five to eleven have received one dose of the vaccine.
Martel said to him, schools reopening feels oddly out of sync with the current situation in Quebec. And, he added, the few measures announced for the reopening on Wednesday did little to reassure worried parents.
“There seems to be a difference between what’s happening elsewhere in society and what‘s happening in the education sector,” Martel said, noting the curfew and other restrictions that are in effect. “We believe children belong in schools, but only when it’s possible to do so safely.”
For Dr. Earl Rubin, division director for pediatric infectious disease at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, the decision comes down to striking a balance, given how crucial in-person learning is for young children.
It also highlights how important it is for parents, grandparents and others who are around children to be adequately vaccinated, he said.
“If we can protect those who would need to be hospitalized so that the hospital system doesn’t crumble,” Rubin said, “then it’s a risk-benefit balance you have to look at.”
On the positive side, Rubin said the Omicron variant doesn’t seem to be causing severe illness at the moment, especially among children.
And, with the in-person return pushed back to Jan. 17, if people adhere to the restrictions in place, Rubin said hopefully any children who contracted the virus during the holidays won’t be bringing it back into the classroom with them.
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But given how transmissible the variant is, it’s likely the virus will “easily spread” once it makes it into a class.
“So we need to focus on protecting the people who are truly vulnerable,” Rubin said, “and do what we can to try to prevent it from coming in and spreading.”
US Hospitals recruiting international nurses to fill pandemic shortages By Nick Ehli, Kaiser Health News Mary Venus, a nurse from the Philippines, checks on a patient inside the in-patient surgical recovery unit at Billings Clinic in Billings, Mont. Photo by Nick Ehli/Kaiser Health News
BILLLINGS, Mont., Jan. 7 (UPI) -- Before Mary Venus was offered a nursing job at a hospital in here, she'd never heard of Billings, Mont., or visited the United States.
A native of the Philippines, she researched her prospective move via the Internet, set aside her angst about the cold Montana winters and took the job, sight unseen.
Venus has been in Billings since mid-November, working in a surgical recovery unit at Billings Clinic, Montana's largest hospital in its most populous city. She and her husband moved into an apartment, bought a car and are settling in. They recently celebrated their first wedding anniversary. Maybe, she mused, this could be a "forever home."
Administrators at Billings Clinic hope she stays, too. The hospital has contracts with two dozen nurses from the Philippines, Thailand, Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria, all set to arrive in Montana by summer. More nurses from far-off places are likely.
Billings Clinic is just one of the scores of hospitals across the United States looking abroad to ease a shortage of nurses worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic. The national demand is so great that it's created a backlog of healthcare professionals awaiting clearance to work in the United States. More than 5,000 international nurses are awaiting final visa approval, the American Association of International Healthcare Recruitment reported in September.
"We are seeing an absolute boom in requests for international nurses," said Lesley Hamilton-Powers, a board member of AAIHR and a vice president for Avant Healthcare Professionals in Florida.
Avant recruits nurses from other countries and then works to place them in U.S. hospitals, including Billings Clinic. Before the pandemic, Avant would typically have orders from hospitals for 800 nurses. It currently has more than 4,000 such requests, Hamilton-Powers said.
"And that's just us, a single organization," added Hamilton-Powers. "Hospitals all over the country are stretched and looking for alternatives to fill nursing vacancies."
Foreign-born workers make up about a sixth of the U.S. nursing workforce, and the need is increasing, nursing associations and staffing agencies report, as nurses increasingly leave the profession. Nursing schools have seen an increase in enrollment since the pandemic, but that staffing pipeline has done little to offset today's demand.
In fact, the American Nurses Association in September urged the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to declare the shortage of nurses a national crisis.
CGFNS International, which certifies the credentials of foreign-born healthcare workers to work in America, is the only such organization authorized by the federal government. Its president, Dr. Franklin Shaffer, said more hospitals are looking abroad to fill their staffing voids.
"We have a huge demand, a huge shortage," he said.
Billings Clinic would hire 120 more nurses today if it could, hospital officials said. The staffing shortage was significant before the pandemic. The added demands and stress of covid have made it untenable.
Greg Titensor, a registered nurse and the vice president of operations at Billings Clinic, noted that three of the hospital's most experienced nurses, all in the intensive-care unit with at least 20 years of experience, recently announced their retirements.
"They are getting tired, and they are leaving," Titensor said.
Last fall's surge of COVID-19 cases resulted in Montana having the highest rate in the nation for a time, and Billings Clinics' ICU was bursting with patients. Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte sent the National Guard to Billings Clinic and other Montana hospitals; the federal government sent pharmacists and a naval medical team.
While the surge in Montana has subsided, active case numbers in Yellowstone County -- home to the hospital -- are among the state's highest. The Billings Clinic ICU still overflows, mostly with COVID-19 patients, and signs still warn visitors that "aggressive behavior will not be tolerated," a reminder of the threat of violence and abuse healthcare workers endure as the pandemic grinds on.
Like most hospitals, Billings Clinic has sought to abate its staffing shortage with traveling nurses -- contract workers who typically go where the pandemic demands. The clinic has paid up to $200 an hour for their services, and, at last fall's peak, had as many as 200 traveling nurses as part of its workforce.
The scarcity of nurses nationally has driven those steep payments, prompting members of Congress to ask the Biden administration to investigate reported gouging by unscrupulous staffing agencies.
Whatever the cause, satisfying the hospital's personnel shortage with traveling nurses is not sustainable, said Priscilla Needham, Billings Clinic's chief financial officer.
Medicare, she noted, doesn't pay the hospital more if it needs to hire more expensive nurses, nor does it pay enough when a COVID-19 patient needs to stay in the hospital longer than typical.
From July to October, the hospital's nursing costs increased by $6 million, Needham said. Money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the CARES Act has helped, but she anticipated November and December would further drive up costs.
Dozens of agencies place international nurses in U.S. hospitals. The firm that Billings Clinic chose, Avant, first puts the nurses through instruction in Florida in hopes of easing their transition to the United States, said Brian Hudson, a company senior vice president.
Venus, with nine years of experience as a nurse, said her stateside training included clearing cultural hurdles like how to do her taxes and obtain car insurance.
"Nursing is the same all over the world," Venus said, "but the culture is very different."
Shaffer, of CGFNS International, said foreign-born nurses are interested in the United States for a variety of reasons, including the opportunity to advance their education and careers, earn more money or perhaps get married. For some, said Avant's Hudson, the idea of living "the American dream" predominates.
The hitch so far has been getting the nurses into the country fast enough. After jobs are offered and accepted, foreign-born nurses require a final interview to obtain a visa from the State Department, and there is a backlog for those interviews. Powers explained that, because of the pandemic, many of the U.S. embassies where those interviews take place remain closed or are operating fewer hours than usual.
While the backlog has receded in recent weeks, Powers described the delays as challenging. The nurses waiting in their home countries, she stressed, have passed all their necessary exams to work in the United States.
"It's been very frustrating to have nurses poised to arrive, and we just can't bring them in," Powers said.
Once they arrive, the international nurses in Billings will remain employees of Avant, although after three years, the clinic can offer them permanent positions. Clinic administrators stressed that the nurses are paid the same as its local nurses with equivalent experience. On top of that, the hospital pays a fee to Avant.
More than 90% of Avant's international nurses choose to stay in their new communities, Hudson said, but Billings Clinic hopes to better that mark. Welcoming them to the city will be critical, said Sara Agostinelli, the clinic's director of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. She has even offered winter driving lessons.
The added diversity will benefit the city, Agostinelli said. Some nurses will bring their spouses; some will bring their children.
"We will help encourage what Billings looks like and who Billings is," she said.
Pae Junthanam, a nurse from Thailand, said he was initially worried about coming to Billings after learning that Montana's population is nearly 90% White and less than 1% Asian. The chance to advance his career, however, outweighed the concerns of moving. He also hopes his partner of 10 years will soon be able to join him.
Since his arrival in November, Junthanam said, his neighbors have greeted him warmly, and one shop owner, after learning he was a nurse newly arrived from Thailand, thanked him for his service.
"I am far from home, but I feel like this is like another home for me," he said.
KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.
Ontarians face ‘unnecessary suffering and death’ without health staff pay raises: unions
“This feeling that no one cares about their safety is a key factor in the demoralization of health care workers.”
A repeal of the bill, Hurley said, would ensure health-care staff were properly compensated for increased risk and workloads during the Omicron surge, which was exacerbating a health-care worker shortage across the country.
Representatives from CUPE, which represents 190,000 health-care workers across Canada, and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which represents 60,000 workers, were joined at the press conference by leaders of Ontario’s opposition parties: NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca and Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner.
Currently, 1,000 staff were off sick in the long-term care sector alone, president of SEIU, Sharleen Stewart, said.
“As recently as two days ago, we saw nursing home operators calling hotels and restaurants to see if they can bring their dietary restaurant staff into the home to take care of the nutritional needs of the residents,” Stewart said.
Ontario has Canada's lowest nurse per capita ratio
The bipartisan call to repeal Bill 124 comes as Ontario Premier Doug Ford this week announced several new COVID-19 public health measures, including moving schools online and enacting restaurant and gym closures and capacity limits as the province struggles to contain the spread of the highly transmissible Omicron variant.
Ontario on Thursday reported 2,279 patients in hospital with COVID-19, including 319 people in intensive care.
St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton nurse reduces working hours amid burn out
St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton nurse reduces working hours amid burn out
However, union representatives say the restrictions are not enough to blunt the wave of transmissions and a potential exodus of health-care workers who will leave the profession when the pandemic is over.
Stewart said internal polling had shown between 20 and 35 per cent of the union’s health-care members were thinking of leaving the workforce due to the working conditions. Hurley said this represented about 20,000 nurses and 50,000 other health-care workers between the two unions.
This would exacerbate a critical shortage of staff that preceded the pandemic and is now being exacerbated by burnout and the mental stress of working under gruelling conditions.
“It’s dangerous. Mistakes are happening at the bedside because of burnout because of shortage of staff,” Stewart said.
“It also means the growing backlog of surgeries and procedures will result in unnecessary suffering and death.”
87 per cent of workers thinking of quitting: union
While Stewart admitted that there was not “one single solution for this problem,” repealing Bill 124 would provide an incentive for many to stay in the profession while more long-term solutions to improve working conditions are worked on.
Hurley said internal polling showed 87 per cent of health-care workers thinking of leaving their jobs would reconsider if they received a wage increase.
“People are holding on now just out of loyalty to the people of Ontario and to their co-workers.”
A lack of mental health support in the sector was further fanning the flames of burnout, Hurley said.
“(Workers) are exhausted physically and emotionally and they are vulnerable to falling ill.”
Nurses in Peterborough protest Bill 124
Nurses in Peterborough protest Bill 124 – Jun 15, 2020
Horwath said the Ontario health system was “falling apart before our eyes” and was now in “a total crisis.”
“Doug Ford is sitting on his hands. And in fact, (he is) not only not doing anything, but making things worse with Bill 124,” she said.
Del Duca said a bipartisan approach was important to achieve action.
“It’s important for the opposition leaders to stand together, because this is a moral imperative for us to get this right,” he said.
“I think this is a particularly important moment with the health-care system really on the brink, that the premier sees all of us working across party lines for the people of Ontario, and ask him to come to the table as well and work across party lines.”
No comment from Ontario government
Horwath and Hurley again criticized Ford’s mention of “absenteeism” during a press conference this week, in which the premier said various sectors were being strained due to workers being sick or requiring mandatory isolation after a COVID-19 exposure or infection.
Horwath said it was the government who had been absent, while Hurley said the term was offensive to health-care workers who had only fallen sick due to a lack of protection at their workplaces.
An Ontario government spokesperson refused to answer specific questions about plans for further investment in the health-care sector during the current Omicron surge and whether the government would consider repealing the bill. They also declined to offer any comment to workers who felt offended by Ford’s comments.
‘We’re not going to be able to stop it’: Ontario reimposes restrictions to fight COVID-19 ‘tsunami’
‘We’re not going to be able to stop it’: Ontario reimposes restrictions to fight COVID-19 ‘tsunami’
Instead, the spokesperson said the opposition’s “record in the legislature speaks for itself.”
“They have routinely voted against our government’s ongoing efforts to shore up more resources in our health-care system.
“Every step of the way they have blocked, slowed down, or voted against billions of dollars in important health care investments.”
Ontario short thousands of nurses as staff burn out during COVID-19 pandemic
A nurse opens up about exhaustion, nightmares and making less than a temp for the same work
By Cynthia Mulligan and Meredith Bond
Posted Jan 6, 2022
As more than 8,000 nursing jobs go unfilled in Ontario, one nurse is speaking out about the physical and emotional toll months of staff shortages and COVID-19 case surges are taking on many health care workers.
Nancy Halupa has been an ER nurse for more than two decades, but says in the last few years the pandemic has left her with nightmares and the feeling her profession is undervalued and disrespected.
“I don’t sleep. I have nightmares. All the time,” said Halupa. “Sometimes I don’t remember if I actually had this patient or if it was just in my dream, but I’m always there. And then I wake up in a cold sweat thinking ‘Oh my God, did I do that in real life? Did that really happen?'”
She started the Twitter and Instagram account @nursewithsign416 in order to speak out against the Ontario government for the position it has put nurses in.
The reason she started her campaign was to try and improve the profession for future nurses.
“I love my job … I love this profession and the way things are going, this profession is going to die.”
The leaders of the NDP, Liberals and Green Party joined union leaders demanding the Ford government repeal Bill 124. Even before the pandemic began, advocates were calling for healthcare workers to at least get a cost of living increase. Many nursing groups and unions say this has already led to a wave of resignations and could contribute to the increasing staff shortages they are facing in the profession.
Halupa claims the hospital she works at uses private agencies to fill the gaps and those nurses are making close to double what she does.
“Those nurses are getting paid upwards of $100 to be at our hospitals. So if they can afford to pay these private agencies to staff or hospitals, they can also afford to pay their own staff,” said Halupa.
The Ontario Health Association confirmed hospitals have had to rely on staffing agencies to “fill short-term needs” and hospitals have seen “an extraordinary increase in agency billing rates paid to agency staff.”
They added these “unprecedented increase in rates is further exacerbating human resource challenges. “While short-term staffing agency wages are inflated, hospitals provide benefits and pensions to employees and therefore total compensation in hospitals is far better in the long run.”
CityNews reached out to the Ministry of Health but has yet to receive a response.
The Registered Nurses Association also confirmed what Halupa told Citynews, adding there are currently 8,000 unfilled nursing positions in this province.
They say many nurses are leaving full-time positions to work at private staffing agencies, where they can make more money and set their own hours.
She said nurses are both physically and mentally exhausted.
“We get yelled at so much there now because of the visitor policy,” Halupa said, noting that nurses didn’t make the rules, but must enforce them.
“Visitors can’t come in and so [loved ones are] calling constantly, which I totally understand, but then that’s just more work for the nurse,” she added. “I don’t think they realize how much extra work this pandemic has caused for us.”
Halupa still loves being a nurse, but it has become harder and harder with each passing wave of COVID-19 infections.
“I liken this profession to being in an abusive relationship,” she said. “You know you shouldn’t be in it any more, you hit your wall, and you should quit but you can’t walk away.”
Here's why people are calling on the Ontario government to repeal Bill 124
Ontario's healthcare system is moving closer and closer to complete collapse thanks to major staffing shortages, and much of the province is urgently calling on Doug Ford's government to aid the situation by repealing Bill 124.
The bill, which was introduced and passed by the province in 2019, limits wage increases for registered nurses, nurse practitioners and health-care professionals to just one per cent per year.
As a result of the legislation, heroic nurses who've risked their lives throughout the pandemic received a salary "increase" this year that, in reality, constitutes a four per cent reduction in their real income after inflation. Nurses say the bill also caps benefits that could help with mental health challenges during the pandemic, and the Ontario Nurses' Association (ONA) says it interferes with Charter rights to freely bargain. Nursing leaders have therefore been calling for the bill to be repealed since it first passed, but those calls have intensified as of late as more and more exhausted health-care workers are leaving the sector at the most critical point in the pandemic thus far.
"There are many reasons why nurses have reached this breaking point," reads an open letter from the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario (RNAO) to Premier Ford.
"Too many days with excessive and dangerous patient workloads. Too many shifts without a day off. Too much time spent away from their families and loved ones. And, too many days under Bill 124 – legislation your government passed in a misguided attempt at austerity."
The RNAO says Ford turned a pre-pandemic nursing shortage into a full-blown nursing crisis, adding that he has "continually shown disrespect for nurses and the nursing profession."
And nurses aren't the only ones saying it.
Ontario opposition leaders Andrea Horwath, Steven Del Duca and Michael Schreiner participated in a joint press conference Thursday, hosted by the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU) and SEIU Healthcare, to echo calls to repeal the bill.
They also signed RNAO's pledge to support their call to repeal, as did all their MPPs. "Ford must recall the legislature so we can repeal Bill 124, Doug Ford's low-wage law, and begin to fix the staffing crisis in our health care system," Horwath said in a statement.
"We need to retain, recruit and return health care workers by showing them the respect they deserve — with better wages, paid sick days and mental health supports," she continued.
"Health care workers are exhausted, burnt out and run off their feet. They deserve better — they deserve respect, and deserve to know that relief is in the way."
Sask. turns to Philippines to address health-care labour shortage
The SHA aims to hire 150 permanent, full-time staff from the Philippines to bulk up a health-care system depleted by COVID-19.
Author of the article: Zak Vescera Publishing date: Jan 05, 2022
The SHA says the hiring is part of a 2022 recruitment drive.
PHOTO BY MICHELLE BERG /jpg
Saskatchewan is once again turning to the Philippines to fill a gap in its health-care labour force.
The Saskatchewan Health Authority aims to hire 150 permanent, full-time nursing and laboratory staff from the Philippines this year to bulk up a health-care system hammered and depleted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Health-care unions expressed support for any efforts to fill the gap — but noted foreign workers must be supported.
“We could not be without our Filipino nurses,” Saskatchewan Union of Nurses President Tracy Zambory said. “They are a gigantic asset and we could not run without them. We just have to make sure that we are taking lessons from the past.”
SUN president Tracy Zambory says Filipino nurses are essential to Sask.’s health care system.
PHOTO BY TROY FLEECE /Regina Leader-Post
Saskatchewan sent a delegation to the Philippines in 2008 as part of a hiring blitz to recruit 800 new registered nurses. University of Calgary assistant professor of sociology Naomi Lightman, who studies migration and care work, said such recruitment drives are not uncommon.
“There’s an entire industry built in the Philippines to train and then export (staff) to work in health care in other, typically wealthier countries,” Lightman said.
As of 2016, Statistics Canada estimated nearly a quarter of nurse aides, orderlies and similar professionals in Saskatchewan were immigrants — more than twice the share of newcomers working in all other jobs. The same study found nearly 30 per cent of such professionals across Canada were Filipino, the vast majority women. SEIU-West President Barb Cape said she was surprised the SHA was only seeking 150 staff. She said there are more than 1,000 job vacancies in the SHA, many of them on a “hard to recruit” list.
Statistics Canada data show there were 330 vacancies in professional nursing positions in Saskatchewan at the end of the third quarter of 2021, compared to 220 in the prior quarter. Cape said she believes some of those issues are chronic, but COVID-19 has resulted in hundreds of staff reducing hours, looking for new work or leaving the field altogether.
“We’ve seen people retire, throw up their hands and quit. People have just had it,” she said.
SEIU-West President Barbara Cape
PHOTO BY LIAM RICHARDS /Saskatoon StarPhoenix
Cape and Zambory said the SHA must take steps to ensure new arrivals settle in comfortably. Cape said many staff from the Philippines who came in 2008 and the following years did not stay, in part because of issues with professional skills but also because workplaces were not ready to help them get used to working in a radically different country and environment.
“When we were there in 2008, we did not prepare the workplace. We did not prepare those incoming health care professionals for our style of health care,” Cape said.
Lightman said workers from the Philippines, while essential to Canada’s health-care system, face hurdles in having their accreditations recognized, meaning they often work jobs for which they are overqualified. Getting the equivalent accreditation in Canada can be costly.
Cape said she knows a worker who was trained as a registered nurse but can only work as a continuing care aide, a job that pays less. Lightman said she believes hiring drives should offer a way to get equivalent credentials and, ideally, for people to establish permanent residency and citizenship.
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with facilitating immigration of workers who have skills we are lacking,” Lightman said. “But of course that’s not what we see. What we see is that these jobs pay less.”
Zambory and Cape added they hope to see investments in other recruitment initiatives, particularly in First Nations and Métis communities.
Postmedia requested an interview with Saskatchewan’s Minister of Health, but did not receive comment.
Opposition NDP Health Critic Vicki Mowat said the hiring is a “positive step,” but warned it’s a “quick fix to a long-term problem.” She called for the creation of a comprehensive health workplace strategy.
“Though an additional 150 positions filled would be a good thing, that is far short of the 1,400 positions currently vacant, a number that is surely set to grow in the coming months,” Mowat wrote in a prepared statement.
