Health Sciences Association criticizes Saskatoon Health Region
The Health Sciences Association (HSAS) of Saskatchewan is critical of the Saskatoon Health Region's decision to force its CEO to resign.
The union, which represents specialized health care workers, said the health region could be spending its money more wisely instead of paying for Maura Davies' severance package.
"They're paying out $382,000, when that money could have been used to hire more physiotherapists, more occupational therapists, more psychologists and not [to] do vacancies management," union president Karen Wasylenko said.
She said health regions are purposely not filling vacancies in an effort to save money.
"For example, if you look back to the summer of 2013 there were twenty plus positions left vacant in particular in the Saskatoon Health Region, that delayed access to services," she said.
Along with access to services, she said wait times and chronic under staffing are of concern.
Health regions are not transparent about their spending, she said.
Public opinion
Wasylenko made the critical comments at a press conference on Thursday morning. The aim of this meeting was to share the findings of a public opinion survey that SHAS funded and conducted.
Members or SHAS did a phone survey with 1,044 Saskatchewan residents. They asked people several different questions relating to their experiences with the province's health care system.
When asked "how would you rate the performance of your local health region at delivering care services to you and your family?" 36.2 per cent of respondents ranked it high; while 11.5 per cent ranked it low.
When asked "how confident are you that your local health region is improving the delivery of health care services to you and your family?" 22.1 per cent of respondents said they were highly confident; while 19.7 per cent said they were not confident.
Wasylenko pointed to long wait times and chronic under-staffing in health regions as an area of concern for respondents.
About 57 per cent of respondents agreed with the following statement during the polling;
"The Health Science Association of Saskatchewan claims many of its specialized health care professions are chronically under-staffed in Saskatchewan health regions, and that this under-staffing has hurt access to health care services," Wasylenko said.
She said her union has repeatedly asked for more information about how health regions are spending money and why they are not making it a priority to improve services in this area.
She said the SHAS has been told by various health regions throughout Saskatchewan that they can not have this information.
"We were told at the bargaining table that its really none of the public's business," she said.
