The problem of just who purchases and uses service vehicles and other capital items and how they are paid for and maintained is a topic that needs to be addressed soon by civic, regional and provincial administrations.
The issue struck home in the Estevan council chambers Monday night after councillors received a letter from the Sun Country Health Region asking them to kick in $50,000 in local taxpayer funds as the city's share for the purchase of a new ambulance.
That same night, council was asked to fork over more than $1 million for a new fire truck that will be outfitted to combat high-rise fires among other things.
They balked at paying for half an ambulance, but agreed to buy a fire truck.
The dividing line appears to be that Estevan fire and police protection service vehicles are the responsibility of the City and that while these departments work within a provincial structure, they are also within a local budget.
Ambulances and school buses however, are regional responsibilities. But while Sun Country comes calling for funds for ambulances, Southeast Cornerstone and Holy Family school divisions don't come knocking on doors looking for additional funds for the purchase of school buses. Buses are included in the overall capital budgets that include replacement plans.
With impending provincial funding cuts for the school divisions though, that situation might change within the year, but for now, nobody is approaching city hall to buy school buses.
But for some unexplained reason, there appears to be no concrete plan in place yet to provide for ambulance replacements when they are required in Sun Country.
The funding for the majority of capital projects in the health-care field outside of Regina and Saskatoon continues to fall on the shoulders of local fundraisers.
Even with a $134 million annual budget, the local health region was unable to supply the dialysis machines to launch that project in St. Joseph's Hospital a few years back. Kinsmen and Kinettes stepped up to the plate for that one. A return of ultrasound in the local hospital? Check out the local health levy, not Sun Country, not the provincial Health Ministry or treasury. We're on our own.
New X-ray arm required in the imaging department? The money comes from the St. Joseph's Hospital Foundation which is also partnering in the drive to pay for local physician recruitment and retention.
Need a new ambulance ... seems as if that too, is a cost that has to be borne by anyone other than the health region or the province.
We do believe that the time is right for all our regional and provincial agencies to submit and admit that they require some serious financial oversight reviews before these capital project issues get completely out of hand. That might be a good opening project for the freshly re-elected provincial government.
Where do the responsibilities lie? Why is an MRI unit in Regina or Saskatoon paid for with provincial funds while a request for a CT scanner in Estevan is ignored for six years? Is the dialysis equipment in Regina paid for by the Hospitals of Regina Foundation or by the Regina-Qu'Appelle Health Region or directly by the Ministry of Health?
Why are ambulance replacement plans so awkwardly handled compared with school bus replacement programs?
Why do health regions continually have to go hat in hand to local foundations, service groups and auxiliaries to find additional money for capital projects that will move them forward?
We believe the subject requires more than a cursory glance by those who are intimately involved as well as those who are on the outside, looking in, but who are still expected to pay the bill.
