Today, CUPE 5430 President Bashir Jalloh joined Healthcare workers at a rally in front of the Yorkton Regional Hospital.

The purpose of the rally was to raise awareness about the crisis in health care and to apply pressure to the provincial government to provide a fair deal at the bargaining table.

Jalloh expresses that too often, families in this region cannot get the care they need where and when they need it.

Jalloh also spoke about the dire consequences of chronic staff shortages, which have been all too frequent in recent years, leading to disruptive local health services and, in some cases, dangerous and unacceptable hospital closures.

The University of Regina’s Saskatchewan Population Health and Evaluation Research Unit recently released a new research report, which showed that there were 2,932 days of service disruptions in the province, and 44% of the disruptions represented by CUPE took place in the Yorkton area.

CUPE 5430 is calling on the government to come to the table to address retention issues and the expansion of permanent, full-time healthcare positions across the province.