RDI

The election campaign in Saskatchewan is entering its second week. On Monday, outgoing Premier and Saskatchewan Party Leader Scott Moe said his party will make it easier to access fertility treatments and cancer screening tests if re-elected on October 28.

If the Saskatchewan Party wins the next election, it will create a 50% refundable tax credit for the cost of a first fertility treatment.

According to information provided by the party, this tax credit will help cover costs related to fertility treatments as well as associated prescription drugs, up to a maximum amount of $20,000, which would represent a benefit of 10 000 $.

Scott Moe also discussed his party’s desire to improve cervical cancer screening by allowing women aged 25 to 69 to self-screen for human papillomavirus infection. (HPV).

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Currently, women in the province receive a letter every three years from the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency, reminding them to make an appointment for a Pap test.

Photo : Radio-Canada / Carl Boivin

Currently, women in the province receive a letter every three years from the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency, reminding them to make an appointment for a Pap test. Thanks to this new initiative, they will have the opportunity to receive a self-sampling kit by mail for screening for HPV, the main cause of cervical cancer.

The Saskatchewan Party will improve access to health services for women in the province through these important new initiatives, says Scott Moe in the press release.

A strong and growing economy means our government can provide better services to everyone, and these are two ways to improve health care for women in Saskatchewan.

The party emphasizes that this initiative would make Saskatchewan the second Canadian province, after British Columbia, to offer self-testing as an option to the traditional Papanicolaou test.

Early diagnosis gives the best chance of beating cancer, said Laura Ross, Saskatchewan Party candidate for Regina Rochdale and a cancer survivor.

This is why the Saskatchewan Party wants to make cervical cancer screening easier for women.

Scott Moe has no plan

In response to these announcements, the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party (NDP) noted that it has been advocating for years for increased support for people seeking fertilization. in vitro, a medically assisted procreation technique.

When I raised this crucial issue, members of the Saskatchewan Party heckled me and dismissed my concerns, says Meara Conway, NDP candidate for the Regina Elphinstone Center riding.

The latter recalls that fertilization in vitro is one of the promises of New Democratic leader and candidate in the next provincial election, Carla Beck.

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Meara Conway is the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party (NDP) candidate for the Regina Elphinstone Center riding.

Photo : Radio-Canada / Kirk Fraser

Meara Conway expresses doubts about Scott Moe’s ability to deliver on his health care campaign promises.

The NDP also highlights its intention to tackle the crisis in emergency rooms in the province.

Scott Moe has no plan to resolve the crisis, the party says.

There are also more than 200,000 people in the province who do not have regular access to a doctor.

With information from The Canadian Press

The British Columbia New Democratic Party (NDP) announces a student loan repayment program to encourage health professionals to settle in rural areas. He also intends to give a greater role to midwives in the province.

This Saturday, NDP leader David Eby promised to invest $75 million to repay the student loans of health professionals who commit to working in rural areas for a minimum of five years.

This measure allows us to provide funding for up to 5,000 health professionals per year, over the next five years, assesses David Eby. The NDP promises repayment of up to $20,000 for student loans who want to become doctors, nurses or health professionals eligible for the program.

The announcement comes after a summer marked by emergency closures in British Columbia, particularly in rural communities. Last August, more than 200 emergency closures had been recorded in the province since the start of 2024.

The goal is to ensure that when people are looking for a place to exercise, they think of smaller areas in British Columbia.

A quote from David Eby, leader of the New Democratic Party of British Columbia

The party also wants to issue interim work licenses to doctors more quickly so that these health-care workers can work immediately when they move to British Columbia.

The party also plans to expand Go Health BC, the program that covers travel expenses for health professionals who support rural emergency rooms. According to the leader of the BC NDP, this will reduce reliance on nursing agencies.

The new measures proposed for the recruitment of doctors and nurses in British Columbia are estimated at $3 million.

More room for midwives

The NDP leader announced that, under his leadership, midwives will be able to prescribe treatments for abortions and administer maternity care.

Mr. Eby also intends to enable midwives to insert IUDs, screen for sexually transmitted diseases and offer professional support to victims of sexual assault.

David Eby says these workers’ room to maneuver is often limited, since outdated rules assume midwives are unable to support women [adéquatement].

Mr. Eby believes that by removing the administrative barriers that midwives face in their practice, the NDP is ensuring that women have quality care throughout the province, wherever they need it.

According to Cat de Cent, a member of the Association of British Columbia Midwives, many people face significant barriers to accessing timely and safe abortions in the province.

The midwife observes that this problem is even more pronounced for those who live in rural, remote, or indigenous communities.

Cat de Cent says midwives are already filling a gap in the health system, and are being approached by members of [leur] community in any way for different health needs.

She supports the measures announced by the NDP, because she notes that midwives represent a valued and reliable part of the health system, especially in rural communities.

According to the Saskatchewan Nurses Union (SUN), the Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon is overflowing and operating at 350 per cent capacity.

According to SUN data, there were 121 patients in a unit that includes 35 beds as of Tuesday evening in the hospital. The Union also claims that there was a shortage of 5 nurses and that there was one nurse to take care of 14 patients.

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The president of the Saskatchewan Nurses Union (SUN), Tracy Zambory, believes that the outgoing government’s recruitment and hospital overcrowding efforts are ineffective.

Photo: The Canadian Press / Heywood Yu

The Union also points out that 12 patients were installed in the hospital corridors and that the hospital emergency department ran out of oxygen.

Saskatchewan New Democratic Party (NDP) candidate for Saskatoon Fairview, Vicki Mowatt, said in a statement that outgoing Premier Scott Moe needs to explain how he allowed this situation to happen under his watch.

He has broken our health care system. How can the people of Saskatchewan trust him to resolve this crisis when he has done nothing for years? wonders Vicki Mowat.

Health personnel again in front of the Legislative Building

The anger of healthcare workers continues to grow over the crisis facing their sector.

After health care personnel represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees, nearly 400 SUN members also organized a rally Thursday in front of the Legislative Building in Regina. The union president, Tracy Zambory, attended the meeting.

How can we take care of our patients in an emergency room that is overflowing, when we are regularly at 200% of our capacity, with beds in the corridors, exclaimed the president of SUN.

We are in a very deep problem, she said.

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Saskatchewan New Democratic Party Leader Carla Beck during a rally organized by the Saskatchewan Nurses Union (SUN) in front of the Legislative Building on October 3, 2024.

Photo: The Canadian Press / Heywood Yu

Saskatchewan NDP Leader Carla Beck, also at the rally, believes nurses deserve better than the treatment they are currently receiving.

We know that the only way to stabilize the situation in hospitals is to work with nurses, says Carla Beck. We will not tell you that we have quick answers and solutions to offer you to resolve what is happening in our hospitals.

The federal government does not know when it will be able to eliminate all of the 408,000 transactions awaiting processing in the Phoenix pay system.

The government wants to eliminate 112,000 by the end of the financial year. This includes processing the 19,000 pending transactions deemed to be the most problematic and impactful for public servants.

Shared Services Canada employees will be the first whose files will be transferred to the new Dayforce payroll system. The government therefore wants to eliminate the 12,000 transactions pending for employees of this department by the end of the financial year.

Artificial intelligence in support

To help resolve payroll issues and improve our operations, we have launched various HR and payroll initiatives. One of them concerns a virtual assistant based on artificial intelligence which is intended to support compensation advisors and significantly reduce processing times, we can read in a press release from Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC ).

The government emphasizes that the first tests with artificial intelligence are conclusive and that it wishes to clean a growing number of erroneous data with this technology.

We did almost 20,000 cases in one evening. So that’s something that a human won’t necessarily be able to do. There, we need to ensure whether the calculation that was made is the correct calculation, confides the Associate Deputy Minister of PSPC, Alex Benay.

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Alex Benay, Associate Deputy Minister of Public Services and Procurement (File photo)

Photo : The Canadian Press / Justin Tang

However, he specifies that it is up to civil servants to manage payments so as not to let artificial intelligence do all the work. There will be humans who will be part of the decision-making process. There will be de facto tools. So, it’s a bit of a transition that we’re making, but we’re trying to do it gradually, adds Mr. Benay.

PSPC maintains that it has begun studying possible solutions for a new modern case management and customer relations tool that will allow more efficient management of pay transactions.

Eliminate pending transactions before Dayforce

The federal government wants to eliminate all transactions pending for more than a year before transferring the files of all federal civil servants to the new Dayforce pay system. This represents approximately 200,000 transactions.

To avoid past mistakes and ensure a harmonious transition between the two pay systems, the government anticipates that they will have to coexist for a period of approximately five years.

We are not going to transfer an erroneous file or data into the new system. I think we’ve seen the impact it’s had historically when we do it. […] We are working on policies and systematic approaches across all ministries to ensure that this does not happen again, underlines Alex Benay.

The official launch of Dayforce is not expected until 2026.

Since 2016, the federal government has spent several billion dollars on the Phoenix pay system.

A government obligation

In response to this update, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) reiterated that paying public servants correctly is not a choice, but rather an obligation of the government and its main responsibility.

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Sharon DeSousa is the National President of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC). (Archive photo)

Photo: Account X/PSAC

New tools to help compensation advisors deal with pay issues are a good start, but after eight years, it’s too little, too late. Public servants and unions expect real progress to be made in resolving the Phoenix pay issues and the enormous backlog of more than 407,000 pay issues, says PSAC National President Sharon DeSousa in a written statement.

For her, we must hire and train compensation advisors and then deal with the new Phoenix problems that are created every day and eliminate the enormous backlog of pay problems.

With information from Estelle Côté-Sroka