The Saskatchewan government continues to move forward with its plan to bring all 12 of the province’s health regions under one health authority before the end of the year.
The latest step is to hire Scott Livingstone as the new CEO. Livingstone brings a strong background in healthcare administration to the post, as he is currently at the helm of the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency, and before that, the Saskatchewan Health Information Network (now eHealth Saskatchewan).
We hope that his decision to take the job reflects ambition and desire on his part. And we wish him luck; he’s going to need it.
The job of the SHA CEO would be difficult at the best of times. It would require someone to work long hours while tending to the many tasks associated with being the CEO of a massive health region.
You have to be able to balance the needs of patients, staff, other administrators and board members, while working with government.
It’s not a job that would have a lot of applicants who are both willing and able.
Adding to the challenge is that Livingstone will be the first CEO of the new mega health authority. He can’t draw on the experiences of predecessors. His best bet for guidance might come from Alberta, which went through a similar amalgamation a few years ago, and had to endure the obvious growing pains.
So we now know who will be the CEO, who will be part of the authority, and where the head offices will be. We don’t yet know when the new health authority will take effect. The government vaguely says it will happen in late fall. There is still a lot of work that needs to occur for that to happen.
Also unanswered is the biggest question of all: how will this affect the delivery of healthcare in Saskatchewan. We won’t have an answer to that question for a long time to come.
Maybe the government is right when they say that Saskatchewan residents will notice improvements in care once all of the health regions are condensed into one.
But it’s not a guarantee.
The new health authority and its administration will be tasked with governing hundreds of healthcare facilities throughout the province. How concerned will they be about the health centres in Midale, Gainsborough and Oxbow? How can they dedicate the necessary time and attention to those sites when they’ll have so many hospitals, long-term care sites and health centres to worry about?
The Sun Country Regional Health Authority was far from perfect, but they could give attention to these facilities in a way that the giant new health region can’t.
This is a challenge Livingstone, the administrators of the new health region, and the board members face as they try to keep care at a high level in Saskatchewan.
