The Health Sciences Association of Saskatchewan Friday revealed its concern relating the critical shortages of health care professionals in the province, pointing that specialists who operate the heart-lung machines used during heart surgeries are burdened with over-work.

The Association further gainsaid, asking for more specialists to be hired so that number of cancelled surgeries in the province could be reduced.

"These issues arose because of totally inadequate planned staffing levels," said association of Saskatchewan president Chris Driol. "Action is needed now. Today."

He also, explains that even before the staffing was reduced by half, these professionals averaged 34-hundred hours of on call with around 300 hours of overtime, in addition to almost 2-thousand hours of regular work every year.

Their total cash compensation ranged from $104,000 to $113,000 over the 2008-09 fiscal year, according to the Saskatoon Health Region.

The constant decrease in perfusions has resulted in continuous rise in the number of cancelled open-heart surgeries, which doubled from 35 to 73 between 2005 and 2007.