Health region officer, union look at staff and workload issues for tech employees

In its report, the CUPE Saskatchewan Health Care Council said beyond staffing issues medical technologists and technicians are challenged by increased workloads. More work and less staff could compromise patient care, the report argues.

“Young people who are graduating [in the field] are looking for work,” Manegre said. “They want the most work they can get, of course. So we have trouble recruiting people to that work.

“We have trouble recruiting into full-time positions, depending on the area and the time of year.”

CUPE-member medical technologists and technicians provide essential services, such as preparing medication, providing blood tests, and conducting X-rays, CT and MRI scans, and other diagnostic tests.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) represents 874 medical technologists and technicians in five health regions in Saskatchewan, including Prairie North Health Region.

Prairie North Health Region chief executive officer David Fan said the CUPE survey’s concerns reflected general concerns for many health regions.

Fan said just as it’s important to be aggressive in trying to recruit new physicians, it is “equally important” to put emphasis and focus on recruiting other health care professionals, such as medical lab technologists or medical radiation technologists, who provide CT scanning and other services.

“Without question it has been difficult to try to recruit those highly trained professionals,” Fan said.

“It has been difficult for quite a number of years,” he added. “A lot of it goes back to the lack of availability of training seats for medical radiation technologists and medical lab technologists because of cutbacks from years ago.”

Fan said recently the Ministry of Health has added eight more seats to the medical lab technology training program.

“I think it’s acknowledged that that increase is not adequate to meet the needs of the entire province,” he said.

As well, more staff from the baby boomer generation are nearing retirement in the next five years so more positions will become vacant.

“We don’t see new folks coming through to fill those vacancies – that raised the concern,” Fan added. “Over the last few years, in spite of good efforts, at times extraordinary efforts, it is difficult to recruit the right number of qualified medical lab technologists and medical radiation technologists to Prairie North.”

He added staff often need to work extra hours when there are fewer employees..

“Obviously, it adds to the work stress, and the work-life balance is less than adequate,” Fan said. “The findings of the report are not surprising to us.”

The CEO said the province would need to provide direction in addressing the problem with supply and demand.

The message was directed to both the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health over recent years to outline the problem, Fan said.

“They have responded somehow, but it may not be enough to solve the supply problem,” he added.

angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsNOW

by Angela Brown

Health region officer, union look at staff and workload issues for tech employees

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