Created: 04 May 2021

Yorkton: The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) is cutting life saving microbiology testing from the Yorkton Regional Hospital. Starting on May 2, microbiology samples from Yorkton and the surrounding area will now be sent to Regina for processing.

“Our Microbiology lab diagnoses critical illnesses such as staph infections, sepsis, meningitis, and post-op infections. The range of tests the government is cutting include microbial organism identification and sensitivity reporting, which is used to identify which treatment options should be given to patients to effectively counter infections,” said Linda Renkas, Regional Vice-President, CUPE 5430. “If treatment or diagnosis is delayed, the consequences can be life threatening.”

Created: 28 April 2021

(Saskatchewan) SGEU, SEIU-West and CUPE – three Saskatchewan unions representing health care providers – are reminding Premier Scott Moe and the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) about their unfulfilled promise made in August 2020 to recruit 73 positions in the provincial lab system for added capacity to assist with the ongoing strains of COVID.

“We have a recent memo authored by Lenore Howey, Executive Director of the provincial lab system, that sets out inflated recruitment numbers within the SHA provincial lab system over the last year,” said Barb Cape, SEIU-West President. “Howey indicates 88 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions have been recruited within 4 classifications to implement COVID diagnostics; yet when asked to provide the breakdown, she refuses to do so. At the same time, we hear from our members who work in the provincial lab system that they cannot keep up with the increased workload because they do not have the resources needed to do so.”

Created: 15 April 2021

REGINA: While CUPE is pleased that the Saskatchewan government has finally decided to prioritize remaining health care workers in the vaccination delivery sequencing, more needs to be done to remove barriers to access.

Created: 15 April 2021

An important research project is being launched this week to explore psychological distress experienced by environmental service workers (ESW) – sometimes known as housekeeping staff – in acute care during the COVID-19 pandemic.

CUPE is a partner in this research project with COVIDEM, and we encourage our members who are environmental service workers to participate.

Created: 14 April 2021

CUPE 5430 would like to thank all of our Medical Laboratory Professionals for your great service during this pandemic and always!

Created: 20 March 2021

We last updated you on January 21, 2021 regarding the status of the movement of IT staff to eHealth. At that time, we identified that we’d reviewed both the Provincial Auditor’s report and the Privacy Commissioner’s report about eHealth. Shortly after that, the full Board of Directors was replaced with a two person board made up of Ministry of Health officials.

With the Board of Directors being in disarray, we didn’t feel that there was the structure or support to ensure a stable and successful transition of our members to eHealth. We wrote to eHealth and the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) postponing our meetings until such time as order was restored within eHealth. The response we received indicated that eHealth and SHA would reach out to us regarding next steps as soon as they were able to do so. To date, we have not heard anything from them about future meetings.