By Chris Jaster
Brad Wall and his ministers met in Swift Current last Tuesday and Wednesday  to prepare for the upcoming fall session of the legislature.
The cabinet meeting, which is following up the Sask. Party’s caucus retreat at Elk Ridge in August, focused on developing a plan for the 2011-12 budget and continuing to make improvements to the health-care system.
“The number one issue we’re planning for is health care and one of those issues would be the number of doctors we have in rural Saskatchewan and the number of health-care workers in general and also wait times for surgery,” said Wall.
“There are a number of other (priorities), but generally speaking we want to keep the economic momentum of the province going and then there is some continued progress in health care.”
Wall’s government has already done a lot of work dealing with  doctor shortages. They have created more seats for people to study medicine at the University of Saskatchewan and they have created more residency positions throughout the province, four of which are in Swift Current.
The Ministry of Health also created the Physician Recruitment Agency of Saskatchewan and hired a CEO to run the organization.
“It’s really a complete model but we have much of it in place and progress is already being made,” said Wall. “When you’re training doctors, of course, there’s a lag between the time you begin and the results. The seats have been added now and more seats for doctor training will be added in the future, as will residencies, but it will take them time to graduate.”
The government has also been working to reduce wait times for surgeries. It would like to reduce wait times to three months within four years. Officials have created the Surgical Information System — an online database so patients can learn about their surgeons and the time frame they’re looking at for surgery — as well as the recently-announced agreement to allow patients to have surgeries outside a hospital setting.
Wall felt the cabinet’s retreat was needed to help his government plan for the upcoming year, as his government has been able to follow through on many of its promises while in office.
“It’s very, very important that we do this,” he said. “To the extent we’ve had some success as a new government, and obviously there will be those who say we haven’t, but the extent that we have, it’s a product of keeping the promises we made but also good planning and that’s why we’re here in Swift Current.
“I also thought it was good for cabinet to come to Swift Current and they seemed to agree with me that it would be a good place to be.”
The fall session of the legislature will resume Oct. 27.