One of the most extensive reforms of our healthcare system will take place next Monday – yet the public doesn’t know too much more about what will happen than when the process was announced months ago.
When it comes to the new province-wide Saskatchewan Health Authority, the government is intent on letting the public know that their frontline services won’t be affected. What they aren’t so enthusiastic about is explaining how it will save $9 million a year on senior administrative staff.
Of course, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out how – by layoffs. The key is that we really don’t know how many layoffs we’ll see in what’s supposed to be a multi-year process.
For Tisdale, which is the home of the Kelsey Trail Health Region’s headquarters, it’s that detail that’s important. Those are salaries that will no longer be spent in the local community.
While there can be a debate on whether or not merging the 12 health regions into one large health authority will be effective in the long run, what we shouldn’t be doing is denying that there will be pain – from layoffs, from major restructuring, from the removal of high-paying jobs in our community. No amount of government spin and ad buys can cover up that fact.
I’m hoping that as we get closer to a single health authority that we hear the provincial government tell us more about what effects it will have, both good and bad.
