43 Filipino nurses added to Saskatchewan’s health-care system

The Saskatchewan government says 43 nurses from the Philippines have arrived in the province under its Health Human Resources Action Plan.

The Internationally Educated Nurses (IENs) are getting on-site clinical training, the government said Thursday. Once that’s done, they’ll be eligible to be licensed and could begin working in the province’s health-care system before the end of December.

“Our government is committed to ensuring our Saskatchewan nurses feel supported in their role and are appropriately staffed to meet an increase in demand on our health-care system,” Health Minister Everett Hindley said in a media release.

“We look forward to these highly qualified nurses joining health-care teams across the province and making a valuable contribution to patient care. We are very pleased they chose to make Saskatchewan their home and build a career here in our great province.”

The government’s action plan is calling for the ​addition of more than 1,000 health-care workers over the next several years.

So far, more than 400 IENs from the Philippines have been given conditional offers of employment from the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA). Of those, 85 are completing a nine-month program — including the aforementioned 43 — and another 75  have enrolled in online training. They’ll still have to complete their clinical training.​

According to the government, 14 IENs living in Canada have completed training and have moved to Saskatchewan, and 19 Ukrainian newcomers have been hired by the SHA.

The media release said the SHA has had hired 785 new nursing graduates from Saskatchewan and outside of the province since last December.

In July, the government announced it was offering 58 training bursaries worth $530,000 to students and new graduates of paramedic programs who agree to join Emergency Medical Services (EMS) in Saskatchewan.

In Thursday’s release, the province said all 58 bursaries had been awarded — and due to the high uptake, the government added another 35 bursaries worth another $290,000.

To date, the government said, 82 per cent of the 250 new and enhanced permanent full-time positions that were available had been filled. Those spots are in nine high-priority occupations  in rural and remote areas of the province.

As well, the Rural and Remote Recruitment Incentive — which is offered to new employees in nine high-priority jobs — has resulted in 219 applications approved to date. The incentive is available in 54 communities across Saskatchewan.

The government also pointed to the creation of 12 physician assistant positions as well as the new two-year physician assistant master’s program that will begin operating at the University of Saskatchewan in the fall of 2025.