(File photo/980 CJME)

By CKOM News - Lisa Schick

Healthcare

New CEO hired for Saskatchewan health worker recruitment Crown

May 7, 2023 | 10:20 AM

The provincial government has found someone to helm its new Crown corporation, the Saskatchewan Healthcare Recruitment Agency.

Erin Brady was introduced as the new CEO earlier this week, the first to take the position at the agency created in the 2022 budget.

Brady has a history with Saskdocs as well as the Saskatchewan Health Quality Council.

“Erin’s going to do an amazing job of recruiting officials from across Canada and around the world to be able to supplement our health care,” Health Minister Paul Merriman said Thursday.

“It’s an honour to have her, she has a great history within the health-care system, working with the health quality council as well as saskdocs.”

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Brady said she’s really looking forward to getting out and meeting all of the partners and communities to find out what’s working that the agency can build on and what needs to be improved.

The shortage of health-care workers has been a limiting factor in Saskatchewan’s health-care system for years, even before the pandemic, but to a much more significant degree since. Brady said the shortage is a global issue and that’ll be one of the challenges of her mandate.

“I know how important it is that we fill some of those gaps so that the system continues to deliver quality care,” said Brady.

In trying to entice people to come to Saskatchewan, Brady said she thinks the lifestyle people can have will be a big factor.

“(There’s) a range of employment opportunities for spouses and a really high quality of living for the practitioners and their families,” she explained.

While the agency will be looking nationally and internationally for recruits, Brady said the first priority will be making sure local graduates are transitioning into practice in the province.

“That’s where our biggest investment is in education and we need to see that return on investment by transitioning our local students into those high-priority positions,” Brady said.

The recruitment agency is new but the work had previously been done by saskdocs and then the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) when it absorbed saskdocs.

The health minister said the government wanted to break the recruitment duties away now because of how large the SHA is, and also because the recruitment isn’t just for the SHA; it will also be looking for family doctors who work outside the authority.