Health foundations donate $500k to new sonography training program

They say ‘it takes a village,’ and six charitable hospital foundations in Saskatchewan are taking teamwork seriously when it comes to improving the state of health care in the province.

The six groups got together to donate $500,000 to provide Suncrest College in Yorkton with the equipment needed for its first-in-Saskatchewan diagnostic sonography program.

Ross Fisher, executive director of The Health Foundation of East Central Saskatchewan in Yorkton, said his foundation had been talking about boosting education programs. And even though health and hospital foundations normally concentrate on their own jurisdictions, they decided the need was great enough and the program was important enough to do something a little different.

“It’s outside of our own facilities, but the benefit will actually extend back into all of our communities because we’ll be training people for the province,” explained Fisher.

The Health Foundation of East Central Saskatchewan donated $220,000 and an existing ultrasound machine to the program.

Hospitals of Regina Foundation donated $100,000 for the program, while St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation in Saskatoon and the Boreal Foundation in Prince Albert donated $25,000 each. St. Anthony’s Hospital Foundation in Esterhazy and the Lloydminster Region Health Foundation both donated $15,000. Other local and community groups also contributed.

The program at Suncrest takes students three years to complete, including practicums, plus a year of post-secondary prerequisites before that.

Alison Dubreuil, president and CEO of Suncrest College, said the college held a virtual information session a week or so after the new program was announced in February. She said the response was overwhelming, with more than 100 people expressing interest.

The first class that started this fall only has six students, but another six seats will be added in each of the next two years, with the first graduates coming out of the school in 2026.

Dubreuil said the school will re-evaluate the seat capacity for the program as they get going.

“We are focused though, initially, on ensuring a superior learning experience and ensuring we work with Saskatchewan Health Authority and to support students as they work in clinicals all across the province,” she said.

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Health Minister Everett Hindley, who was at the donation announcement, said he’s heard a lot about service disruptions, often in rural areas, while travelling around the province in his ministerial capacity.

The province pays Alberta to keep seats open for Saskatchewan students at its SAIT sonography program, and Hindley said he also spoke to people who said travelling to Alberta for that schooling wasn’t an option.

“But if we could offer that closer to home, then they’d be interested. They can make things work, and I really think that’s a huge benefit,” said Hindley.

The province will continue paying for those out-of-province training seats, but Hindley said the province will re-evaluate that arrangement once the Suncrest program is better established.

The minister said this kind of creative solution could be used as a model for other in-demand health-care training options in the province.

“I, as the minister, am always open to new and innovative ways to not only deliver health care, but how do we try to fill those gaps we have when it comes to hiring recruits of health-care professionals and how we train them as well,” said Hindley.