The internal memo, circulated among SHA management, indicates that occupational therapists are being “temporarily reassigned to priority units” to cover staffing shortages and that care has been paused in multiple critical units.
“This memo confirms what frontline workers have been telling us for months,” said Keith Jorgenson, Associate Shadow Minister for Health. “Our healthcare system is going in the wrong direction and the Sask. Party can't be trusted to fix it.
“When healthcare workers are being shuffled around just to plug holes and services are being cut, the quality of patient care suffers. This government is driving healthcare workers out of the province and it’s hurting Saskatchewan people.”
The leaked memo comes on the heels of 450 frontline healthcare workers signing an unprecedented open letter to the Minister of Health calling for action and decrying the deplorable conditions at RUH.
The Saskatchewan NDP is demanding that Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill immediately disclose how many occupational therapists have been redeployed at RUH, how many vacancies exist, and whether this practice is occurring in other hospitals across the province.
“Instead of staffing up, this government is playing musical chairs with healthcare staff,” said Jorgenson. “Patients deserve consistent, high-quality care, not a system held together by band-aids.”
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