Sask. NDP joins calls for local occupational training program

The Saskatchewan NDP is raising the alarm about a shortage of occupational therapists.

The official opposition is putting the provincial government on blast for failing to attract and recruit medical specialists, and for failing to retain local ones.

“There is a chronic shortage across the country. The World Health Organization says that you should have 470 occupational therapists per 100,000 individuals across the country; we’re looking at approximately 45 per 100,000,” said Christine Fleming, regional director of the Saskatchewan chapter of the Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists.

“Occupational therapists are health professionals, who work most often in a team with the rest of the health professions — the OTs the (physical therapists), social workers, the physicians.

“We work with people to maximize their opportunities for everyday activities. So if you have had a stroke or an illness or an injury from a car accident, you’re no longer able to do the things that you used to do — things as basic as getting up and dressed in the morning or getting to the washroom when you need to.”

Fleming said the organization is pushing for a Saskatchewan-based school for occupational therapy.

She said that she and many of her colleagues have had to leave the province for training.

Premier Scott Moe and Sask NDP Leader Carla Beck got into a back-and-forth over this matter during Wednesday’s Question Period.

Beck emphasized support for the creation of a school while Moe argued that now isn’t the time for such a plan.

Moe mentioned the province’s announced expansion of training seats at the University of Alberta as a short-term solution.

However Fleming said she isn’t convinced that said expansion would solve the problem.

“(The provincial government) talked about (it) training additionally 50 occupational therapists. That is a bit inaccurate,” she said.

“They have increased the training seats to 25 for first-year students and 25 for second-year students. So, given that, we would be bringing home a total of 30 new clinicians a year.

“Unfortunately, there is not an opportunity to ensure that those students are returning to Saskatchewan for their practice.”

Fleming said only seven of the 20 students in this year’s graduating class at U of A are returning home to work in the province.

“People have been trained at the University of Manitoba, in Ontario etcetera and come back to work. So incentivizing clinicians to come and work in rural areas that might help but it’s not the answer,” Fleming said. “We need to be trained here in order to stay here.”

Fleming also said Saskatchewan’s 28 occupational therapists per 100,000 people is the lowest rate per capita in the country according to the Canadian Institute of Health Information.