Fetch Is a Two Party sport, right?

SAHO & Regional Health Authorities

A special message from MRT - Specialty group & SEIU-West

We want to make patients aware that the resources required to meet the real demands of the health system are not in place.

Once again, there are a group employed as MRT Specialty bringing to light that the demand of their profession is not being met. 
Recently there were two jobs posted for CT positions at Saskatoon City Hospital. To our knowledge there were only 2 applicants - neither of which met the qualifications (one is in the process of taking the required Computed Tomography course, but has not written the examination as of yet).

The next step is to post the vacancy on the CAMRT (across Canada) website.

If this is anything like the recent St. Paul's Hospital experience in filling Angio Tech positions, this may take months.

Months of crushing workloads and constant overtime - in order to get the necessary diagnostic testing done for their patients.

Presently, there are 46 of the MRT Specialty positions in our 4 affiliated Regional Health Authorities, and not all are filled.  Pay equity for 46 additional employees would have been proactive.  The health regions could now be providing a safe work environment with well less overtime with a view to avoiding potential mistakes.

When asked about wage adjustments and the recruitment and retention issues, the response from SAHO was:

Your wage is 'competitive' within the Western Canadian region.  We don't see any potential problem in filling vacancies.  Therefore, you do not qualify for a market adjustment based on retention & recruitment issues.
What did the Health Regions have to say?

We recognize that MRT Specialty positions are difficult to fill. As of December 09, we had three vacancies on our regional hard to recruit list. For the most part, when we are not able to find qualified applicants, we've been hiring trainees from the MRT group on a conditional basis in order to meet our operational needs.
However, there are fewer trainees coming forward as a result of the SAHO final offer which did not acknowledge the critical Retention & Recruitment issues in the MRT Specialty classification, or the whole family of MRT's.

It only offered a market adjustment to specific members of the MRT classification.

It would be worth it for your health, right?