The provincial government has missed the deadline to provide the NDP with information requested through the Freedom of Information Act, a move that the NDP Health Critic says breaks the government’s own laws and lacks transparency.

To find out how much money the Administrative Information Managment System has cost the province to date, the NDP issued an Access to Information Request on July 4th. On August 12th, the province extended the usual 30-day response deadline to September 11th, but Vicki Mowat says the information has yet to be received.

AIMS is the system the province launched in June that was supposed to replace over 80 individual programs dedicated to payroll, scheduling, and supply deliveries. She says AIMS was expected to cost $80 million, but that has since ballooned to over $240 million.

Mowat says since June, AIMS has meant nothing but chaos for healthcare workers.

“The program has left healthcare workers without pay for weeks, caused chaotic scheduling errors and service disruptions, and even shortages of vital medical supplies, and hundreds of millions of dollars of wasted taxpayer money.”

She says some healthcare workers have received over payments, while some have not been paid at all. She adds that the ownness is on the healthcare worker to check their bank accounts, make sure they’re getting paid adequately, and contact the SHA if need be.

She says, “to put this in perspective, the Sask. Party has spent more money on their failed IT software program than on healthcare recruitment this year.” Mowat adds that Scott Moe would have come much closer to balancing the budget if it weren’t for the money he poured into AIMS.

She calls on the province to disclose how much money has been spent on the project before the election, as taxpayers deserve to know.