SASK. PARTY DEFENDS REPLACING DOCTORS WITH WEBCAMS FOR EMERGENCIES, CHILDBIRTH

For immediate release: April 29, 2025

REGINA – As doctors leave rural Saskatchewan communities in droves, Sask. Party Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill today defended his government's decision to replace them with webcams in rural emergency rooms.

Under the Sask. Party’s virtual physician program, patients in 26 communities may not get in-person care from a doctor next time they visit an emergency room. Instead, they might only get virtual consultations through Healthline 811.

"The Sask. Party is driving doctors out of the province and the Minister thinks they can be replaced with webcams,” said Meara Conway, Shadow Minister for Rural & Remote Health. “Does the Minister think virtual physicians can treat broken legs, appendicitis, and heart attacks?”

When questioned on emergency room and maternity ward closures yesterday, Cockrill praised the program, saying that it ensures these services in rural and northern communities can “carry on.”

“In the context of emergency room and maternity ward closures, the Minister talked up the Virtual Physician Program, and I’m trying to wrap my head around the Minister’s answer,” said Conway.

“If a woman is having a baby and there’s no obstetrician at her hospital, when she accesses a virtual physician and the physician asks how far along she is, where exactly does the Minister propose she point the webcam? This is a ludicrous as it sounds.”

The Saskatchewan NDP is calling on the government to focus on the future, stop cutting the healthcare budget, and hire more real live doctors.

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