In response to the Government of Saskatchewan’s “Patients First Health Care Plan,” Bashir Jalloh, President of CUPE 5430, which represents over 14,000 health care workers across Saskatchewan, issued the following statement:
“This announcement was a missed opportunity that does little to address the real crisis facing our health care system – the critical staffing shortages and burnout among the frontline workers running our health system.
Any plan to fix health care requires fixing the workforce crisis. We need to see meaningful investment to address recruitment and retention, improve working conditions, and show respect for health care workers. That starts with a fair deal for frontline health care workers. After almost 4 years without raise, this announcement is nothing but lip service and is insulting to our members who work day in and day out holding our health system together.
We’re also concerned that this provincial government has not learned from their failed privatization schemes and continue to contract out health care services. They know private health care costs more, erodes quality of care, does little to reduce wait times, and pulls health care workers out of the already short-staffed public system.”