cypresshealthwinter

Last week's provincial budget included more funding to support the Saskatchewan Surgical Initiative, something that has been very successful in the Cypress Health Region.

The latest figures showed that 99.8% of surgeries in the health region were done in six months or less, the best rate in the province.

"Part of it is, we do have capacity within our OR, and I think that one of the things that we are looking at as a province is to look at when a region has some capacity that's available, how do we allow other regions to have access to that capacity," said Beth Vachon, CEO of the Cypress Health Region. "Part of it is that we do have the ability to perform more surgeries in our region than we're actually doing at this point."

Most other health regions are expected to meet their targets, however the Saskatoon and Regina Qu'Appelle Health Region have fallen behind their goals, and Vachon says they are willing to share their capacity to help those regions catch up.

"That's how we need to think as a province what's in the best interests of the patients that we serve," she added. "If we have the ability to take on an added patient load for general surgeries, we've made that offer."

The Initiative started in 2010 with an aim to reduce surgical wait times to under three months by April 2014. Wednesday's budget included an increase in $10 million dollars in spending toward the Initiative for a total budget of $70.5 million.