REGINA - The Saskatchewan government has announced that Erin Brady has been hired as the new Chief Executive Officer of the Saskatchewan Healthcare Recruitment Agency.
She begins the role on May 23, 2023. Previously, her experience in the health sector with Saskatchewan Health Quality Council and saskdocs.
The SHRAN is the independent Treasury Board Crown Corporation established last year that is responsible for recruitment of doctors, nurses and other priority health care professionals to the province from both inside and outside Saskatchewan.
Brady was introduced to reporters at the legislature Thursday by Minister of Health Paul Merriman.
"Erin’s going to do an amazing job of recruiting officials from across Canada and around the world to supplement health care," Merriman said. "It’s an honor to have her, she has a great history working within the health care system working with the health council and with saskdocs. And I’d like to welcome Erin to the position."
In speaking to reporters Brady said she was looking forward to “getting out and meeting with all of the partners and communities and hearing their perspectives on what’s going well that we should continue to build on and what their ideas are for improvement.”
Health care recruitment challenges have been a major issue for the province, and the government had introduced a four point Health Human Resources Action Plan to recruit and retain workers. The province said that work will be accelerated and enhanced by the work of the SHRA.
Brady acknowledged the shortage of the health care workforce was a global issue. “So that’s definitely one of the challenges and we know how important it is to fill some of those gaps so that the system can continue to deliver quality care.”
While there has been much attention on international recruitment as of late, Brady said their first priority will be “making sure our local graduates are transitioning into practice. That is where our biggest investment is and we need to see that return on investment by transitioning our local students into those high priority positions.”
She also said retention will be another focus. “We will be working on retention as well. Settling the family is so important and intubating them into the community and making sure that the practitioners could find joy in their work. So those are all factors that will influence retention.”
