Make no mistake, big change is in the works for health care business in Saskatchewan. We can expect major, but less radical tweaks to the educational administrations too.
This is only speculation at this point, since the government is still gathering data and lining up the decision desks while appointing panels to do the grunt work.
Focusing on the delivery of health care services is probably going to be the most controversial issue the Sask. Party government has had to face in its approximate 10 years of operation as our chief administrative body.
Premier Brad Wall, his cabinet and caucus are not likely relishing the idea of reducing their popularity polling numbers over the next few months, but it seems almost inevitable with health care costs continuing to soar, even after the imposition of checks and balances and pleas to tone down the spending.
That is difficult in a province where the population continues to grow, while the economy slithers downward. It’s not a healthy combination for government.
If there is any advice to offer Jim Reiter, the minister of health, and Greg Ottenbreit, the minister of rural and remote health, it would be to perform their jobs with complete transparency and honesty. We don’t need any sleight-of-hand, hidden cards up the sleeve- maneuvers. In other words, we wouldn’t want to see another Regina highway bypass and Global Transportation Hub style, behind the curtain, action-plan on the hospital and health care files.
If the data gathering is going to lead to more hospital and health centre closures in the name of efficiencies, then spell it out and provide the reasoning. Saskatchewan citizens know how increasingly difficult it is to continue to provide first-class care in small towns. Not every town with populations between 800 and 1,500 can have a hospital under current conditions and many can’t take on health clinics and health centres. It may no longer be possible. Just like the grain elevators and school closures and the loss of the small town grocery stores, took place years ago, we may have arrived at that transformational stage where rough and tough decisions have to be made again.
If the NDP were to be criticized for the closure of 52 Saskatchewan hospitals 25 or so years ago, the time may have come for the current government to have to face up to a similar scenario in order for our coveted one-payer Medicare system to survive.
We see the need to retain that model as being even more important than salvaging hard-pressed lightly used health centres that struggle to retain physician and nursing services in communities where there is no existing medical community.
Contrary to some beliefs, it’s not caring for a growing number of seniors that is fueling the strain on health care financial resources. According to numbers we found, the senior population growth only adds about one per cent to the growing expense account. One cost that is chalked up to seniors is mainly due to the use of acute and primary care beds where a long-term care bed would better serve the system. That’s not a senior problem, that’s a management problem.
More costly items to be addressed are in technology and drug supply sectors.
Taking care of more and more people who have become obese, or suffer from a growing variety of afflictions at earlier ages, is costing us more than the care of senior citizens.
Wage increases for care providers, including physicians, is a huge financial factor as well.
Home care is seen as an add-on expense, until it is part of an integrated program. How will we deal with this scenario?
So, bring on the data-seekers, pile on the peer panels and let’s roll up the proverbial sleeves. We are to be inoculated, vaccinated or maybe decimated and it won’t be our choice. The verdict will be delivered by those we elected to serve us.
