I step outside into the cool prairie air as my rental car thaws in the morning sun. It’s day three of my visit to Yorkton, a small city in east-central Saskatchewan where the horizon stretches endlessly in all directions. I’m here because of a text message from Brenda, a labor and delivery nurse I met at a healthcare conference last year.
“We’re down to four nurses covering the entire maternity ward,” her message read. “I haven’t seen my kids in three days.”
The maternity unit at Yorkton Regional Health Centre serves not only the city’s 20,000 residents but also dozens of surrounding communities, including several First Nations. For expectant mothers in this region, the next nearest option is often Regina—nearly 200 kilometers away on highways that become treacherous during Saskatchewan’s notorious winters.
“I love my job, but we’re at a breaking point,” says Brenda, who requested I use only her first name, as we sit in a quiet corner of the hospital cafeteria. Dark circles frame her eyes. She’s just finished a 16-hour shift. “Last week, we almost had to divert a mother in active labor to Regina because we didn’t have enough staff to safely deliver her baby.”
Brenda’s experience is not isolated. Across Saskatchewan, maternity wards are grappling with critical staffing shortages that threaten both access to care and the wellbeing of the healthcare workers who remain. According to data from the Saskatchewan Health Authority, vacancy rates for registered nurses in rural maternity settings have climbed to nearly 30 percent in some regions—a situation health officials describe as “unprecedented.”
Sandra Seitz, president of the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses, confirms the severity of the situation. “We’re seeing nurses leaving the profession entirely after the pandemic,” she explains during our phone conversation. “In maternity care, the stakes are incredibly high—you’re responsible for two lives at once, often more with twins or triplets. When you’re chronically understaffed, that pressure becomes unbearable.”
The staffing crisis has real consequences. Three smaller facilities in the province have temporarily suspended their maternity services in the past year, forcing expectant mothers to travel farther for care. This burden falls especially hard on Indigenous communities, where transportation barriers and cultural disconnection from care can lead to poorer outcomes.
At Yorkton Regional, I meet Leanne Buffalo, a doula who works primarily with Indigenous mothers from nearby reserves. She shares a story that haunts her: “Last month, a young mother from Cote First Nation went into labor early. The maternity ward here was short-staffed, so they sent her to Regina. She delivered alone in an unfamiliar city without her family support network. That isolation during birth goes against everything in our traditional practices.”
Health experts point to multiple factors driving the nursing shortage in Saskatchewan’s maternity wards. The pandemic accelerated burnout among an already strained workforce. Provincial data indicates that specialized obstetrical nurses are retiring faster than they can be replaced, with training programs struggling to attract students to rural placements.
Dr. Carla Holinaty, a family physician who delivers babies in Saskatoon, describes a dangerous cycle. “When maternity wards are understaffed, the remaining nurses work overtime. They miss family events, they’re exhausted, and eventually, they leave too. Then we’re even more short-staffed,” she explains. “The specialized skills required in labor and delivery make this particularly challenging—you can’t just bring in any nurse to fill these roles.”
For communities like Yorkton, the consequences extend beyond healthcare. Mayor Mitch Hippsley tells me the maternity ward is essential to the city’s future. “Young families won’t move here if they can’t safely have their babies here,” he says as we walk through downtown. “We’re working with the provincial government to find solutions, but this isn’t just Yorkton’s problem—it’s happening across rural Canada.”
The Saskatchewan Health Authority acknowledges the severity of the situation. In an email response, spokesperson Doug Dahl writes that the SHA has implemented several strategies, including signing bonuses for rural positions, accelerated training programs, and temporary relocation of staff from urban centers. “Ensuring safe maternal care remains a top priority,” the statement reads, “but we recognize the current staffing model is not sustainable.”
Back at the hospital, I meet Maya Jensen, a new mother cradling her day-old daughter. She was lucky—her delivery coincided with adequate staffing levels. “My nurse was amazing, but I could tell how stretched thin they were,” she says. “She mentioned she was on her second double shift this week. I can’t imagine doing such an important job while that exhausted.”
For nurses like Brenda, potential solutions can’t come soon enough. As our conversation ends, her phone buzzes with another request to cover a shift. She sighs heavily before responding.
“I became a maternity nurse because bringing new life into the world is the most beautiful thing,” she says, gathering her things to head home for a few precious hours of sleep. “But we can’t keep doing this. Something has to change before we lose more nurses—or worse, before someone gets hurt because we’re just too exhausted to catch a problem in time.”
As I drive away from Yorkton under a vast prairie sky, I reflect on how this community’s struggle represents a wider crisis in rural healthcare. The promise of universal healthcare—that all Canadians deserve quality care regardless of where they live—feels increasingly fragile in places where maternity wards operate on the edge of what’s possible, sustained only by the dedication of the nurses who remain.
