While maintaining that the province is still in last place in Canada for key procedures and claims that the SaskParty government makes sweetheart deals with Calgary clinics as a result, Saskatchewan N-D-P leader Carla Beck (pictured) said surgery capacity would be increased with wait times reduced if she and her party form the next provincial government.

Speaking Friday in Regina, Beck promised that an N-D-P government in Saskatchewan would perform more surgeries in the public system by staffing up surgical rooms and increasing hours of operation. Diagnostic scans – and the healthcare workers who perform them – would be increased. Those procedures would include M-R-Is, mammograms and C-T scans. The commitment to increased surgeries and more scans is part of the Saskatchewan N-D-P’s pledge to invest an additional one-point-one billion dollars in new healthcare funding over the next four years. Friday’s campaign-style narrative from Beck comes as the province awaits the calling of a Provincial General Election, expected to come early next week in advance of a mandated date of no later than October 28.