The Ministry of Health has recently entered into a new partnership with Service Employees International Union-West (SEIU-West) and four health regions to improve the health system and patient care.
Although the partnership was officially signed in September of last year, the ministry only recently made the announcement to indicate their readiness for the new commitment.
“The partnership provides a framework for all of us as partners to work together to discuss issues and solve problems collaboratively around areas of common interest,” said Tracey Smith, assistant deputy minister for Health Ministry. “We’re identifying those areas that would be a priority that the partners would want to look at.”
So far, there have been at least six areas of focus for the partnership:
• Promoting a culture of safety
• Increasing employee engagement
• Improving the health system by following the principles of Better Health, Better Care, Better Value, and Better Teams
• Increasing recruitment and retention
• Attendance support
• Scheduling
Considering this partnership is still in its early stages, the focuses are still quite general. However, as each partner brings more issues and concerns to the table, those focuses will become more specific.
SEIU-West is at the ground level, working with health employees and seeing what are the most daily and pressing concerns. They are a type of union that represents workers employed in private, public, and industrial sectors. Those health care workers number approximately 12,000 and can come from anywhere from home care agencies to emergency services to hospitals. As such, part of their role in the partnership will be bringing ground-level concerns to the attention of everyone else.
“The role SEIU-West plays is to take what happens on the shop room floor and hospital to decision-makers from the region or ministry and put some action behind their decision-making,” said Barbara Cape, president of SEIU-West. “The language of the partnership agreement holds everyone accountable for doing something instead of talking about it.”
So far, the representatives have been meeting on average monthly basis. Aside from SEIU-West and the Health Ministry members, they include individuals from the Saskatoon, Heartland, Five Hills and Cypress health regions. Those representatives bring forward an operational perspective since they can see what is and isn’t working in the system.
“Right now, we’re in the beginning stages of setting up terms of reference and looking at what priorities are,” said Mike Northcott, director of human resources for the Saskatoon Health Region. “Recruiting and retention is a big one of us … when it comes down to it, a lot of the priority areas are common to all of us.”
It’ll be some time yet before any tangible progress, but all of the involved members seem optimistic. The partnership is an opportunity to cut through the communication channels and get the information directly from the source. The expectation is that improvements to patient care and the workplace can happen more efficiently.
“The overarching goal is to be able to take the work and share it deeper in the organizations with the employees in their work units,” said Smith. “We’re making good headway and setting ourselves up for identifying the next steps and priority areas to make sure there’s that engagement among the health staff as well.”
