“You’re not fixing systemic issues by throwing people at them.”
Shannon Orell-Bast’s experience as a cancer patient in Saskatchewan’s health system leaves her cautious about celebrating the announcement of new specialists joining the provincial cancer agency.
“This is a patch on a bucket full of holes,” she said Tuesday in an interview with the Leader-Post. “I think there’s good efforts being made to recruit (but), as someone who navigates that system, who is in that system, we simply don’t have enough staff.”
Cancer clinics in Saskatoon and Regina are welcoming nine new physicians, according to the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency (SCA) and the provincial government.
One clinical associate and one hematologist have already begun work at the Allan Blair Cancer Centre in Regina while two other physicians have joined the gynecology-oncology program, with three more hematologists to arrive by May 2025.
A clinical associate has also joined the Saskatoon Cancer Centre, with a medical oncologist to arrive next month.
Seven of these new arrivals are filling vacancies and two are new additions identified as necessary due to workload demands, said SCA director of medical affairs and physician operations Nicki Bayfield-Ash in an interview Tuesday.
“The transition has been really smooth,” she said of the new arrivals. “Our teams are very appreciative to have them there and it’s going really well.”
Orell-Bast agreed the recruitment is a positive, but she raised questions on the larger picture about how understaffing impacts patients and front-line workers. That leads to another question she has posed to legislators and still maintains is the ultimate concern: “what are we doing to keep our staff?”
She still feels that way now.
“Everything is so interconnected in the health-care system that you have to have all the players on board,” she said.
“If you look at health care as a relay race and when you go to pass the baton somebody is missing because of gaps in service, how is that patient-centred care?” said Orell-Bast.
She described the current situation inside the health system as a defensive pressure-cooker environment, where patients think they’re slipping through cracks and health-care workers feel they’re on the hot seat.
“We have a lot of systemic issues in health care, and I would describe the system itself as one of them,” she said. “You’re not fixing systemic issues by throwing people at them.”
Bayfeild-Ash said all care teams within the SCA have been “working extra hard” to keep impacts to patient care minimal while these physician roles were vacant.
“I don’t think any patient to date would have known that we were short or have experienced any of that, because our teams are so dedicated,” she said.
Bayfeild-Ash added that recruitment efforts are continual at SCA, as the process can take anywhere from three months for out-of-province recruits to a year for international reinforcements.
“We don’t wait for vacancies. We’re constantly out there looking,” said Bayfeild-Ash. “The last thing we want is for patients to be waiting.”
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