Kaeding Takes On Rural Health & Seniors

This area’s MLA, Warren Kaeding, is taking over two new portfolios in the provincial cabinet.
Premier Scott Moe has announced the MLA for Melville-Saltcoats is the Minister Responsible for Rural and Remote Health and Minister Responsible for Seniors, a newly revived cabinet responsibility.
Kaeding had previously served as Minister of Government Relations and Minister Responsible for First Nations, Metis and Northern Affairs.
Those two jobs have been given to Lori Carr who will also be Minister Responsible for the Provincial Capital Commission.
Premier Moe also announced that Greg Ottenbreit, MLA for Yorkton, is the new Minister of Highways and Infrastructure, and Minister Responsible for the Water Security Agency. He had previously served as the Rural and Remote Health Minister.
Kaeding sees some big challenges ahead in the area of rural health care. “We’re always going to be seeing challenges in trying to provide health care for people in rural and remote Saskatchewan just as it is in any jurisdiction in North America. Making sure that we’ve got the services out in remote areas and everyone has equal access to them.”
As for the Seniors mandate he notes that hasn’t been an actual cabinet position since 2007 “so ultimately we’re kindof starting over. We’re really starting a whole new role.”
The biggest concern Kaeding foresees in that portfolio are the various aspects of caring for the elderly including health care, long-term care, palliative care, and hospice.
“Getting, and making sure that seniors have access to those services is probably one of our primary functions here.”
“Really, under five percent of our seniors right now in the province are in long-term care. So one of the focuses that we need to spend a lot of time on is keeping our seniors healthy, and active, and in their community where they were born, lived and raised a family. They certainly want to stay in that community as long as possible.” Keeping them healthy and active will help them do that, he says.
He also expects to be looking at seniors in the workforce. “With the changing demographics and the way we are with employment in the province seniors have the choice of working beyond the age of 65. So how can we help them in the workforce?”
Preventative health will be another focal point of the ministry, he says, particularly as it has to do with mental health, depression, and senior isolation.
Technological adaptation is another issue waiting to be tackled, Kaeding expects. “It’s a technological world out there so how can we help seniors adapt to the new technology and be an active part of it?”
While his mandate is rural health, Kaeding says there may be lessons to be learned from urban health care programs that could be adapted to meet the needs of more remote areas.
He points to “trinity health centres” in more marginalized communities in Saskatoon and Regina where specific groups are targeted for care, such as frail seniors, others who don’t have easy access to health care, or others who have chronic health conditions that are ultimately high users of emergency rooms. The programs take the support services out to those patients instead of having them come into the emergency rooms.
“Ultimately maybe we will be rolling back to home care where doctors or medical professionals came out to the home.”
He suggests the province’s Paramedics could be given new roles, not just to respond to emergencies but to be more involved in the community, such as promoting better health care for people in their homes.
“Home first, quick response, senior house calls, we’ve rolled those all now into what they call connected care. That’s our major initiative in allowing people to move through the various parts of health care allowing them to remain in their home for as long as possible, and then moving into some type of minimal care and then, as their care needs increase, helping them transition.”
Looking back at his work in the field of government relations, Kaeding says he’s particularly pleased with the progress he made in working with the various stakeholder groups such as the Sask. Assoc. or Rural Municipalities, the Sask. Urban Municipalities Assoc. and New North.
“There are a lot of shared initiatives now that they’re working on and I’d like to believe maybe I played a small part in helping those organizations get together and working closer together.”
He points also to the new municipal revenue sharing agreement as a key accomplishment. “It’s now formalized and in place for a number of years.”
“I started a number of initiatives that are beginning to gain some momentum that, hopefully in the next two or three years will see some continuum on them.” He notes the new infrastructure agreements with the federal government, past and present, that are benefiting local municipalities.
As for the First Nations, Metis and Northern Affairs portfolio, “That’s certainly a very lengthy work in progress. I felt that we’d accomplished, if nothing else, being able to reach out to our Indigenous communities and show them that we have an open door, that we’re always willing to listen to our partners, to hear their concerns and try to find solutions to a number of the issues.”
He’s particularly encouraged by the number of First Nations in the province “that have really turned the corner on economic development. There are some tremendous initiatives that they’re starting to launch whether it’s into tourism, renewable energy, oil pipeline development, even in the health care area. There’s a number of initiatives that were started, with us working closer with all of our Indigenous neighbours.”
Overall, looking back at both ministries’ accomplishments, Kaeding says, “They’re always difficult to measure, but I think just by ensuring that the door is open and we continue to have dialogue and conversations, that goes a long way into building those relationships. And that’s what I hope to see in the future: more work on building those relationships and seeing some real positives.”