Perhaps you live in one of the Saskatchewan communities fortunate enough to have recently received one of 20 new doctors who came to our province.
If you do, you’re likely to know about it already. News like that travels fast in smaller communities … although perhaps not quite as fast as it does through government communications, which was rather intent last week on ensuring that everyone in the province knew about the new doctors.
And while many might not see much wrong with the Saskatchewan Party government doing this, it does speak to a problem of priorities.
Much to the amusement of newsrooms across the province last week, they were greeted Monday morning with a barrage of news releases on the doctors’ hiring.
It all started innocuously enough with one government news release proudly announcing that 20 new doctors would be practising in Saskatchewan.
That first news release explained that the hirings were a result of the new Saskatchewan International Physician Practice Assessment (SIPPA) program, which has been rather effective in sorting through the ample red tape in the world of medical accreditation that sometimes makes it difficult for foreign doctors to practice here.
Again, there is nothing wrong with making the public aware of this program or its successes. The spoils of power mean that you get to use the resources of the taxpayers to toot your own horn a little.
The problem, however, is that when you toot your own horn to excess, it isn’t just loud and obnoxious. Sometimes, it truly is an abuse of power. And at the very least, 10 separate news releases basically saying the same thing is excessive.
Yes, you read that correctly. The government issued 10 news releases, all of them heralding the arrival of the doctors in every single health region in the province that received at least one doctor.
Of course, new doctors in Arcola, Lloydminster, Swift Current, Porcupine Plain, Leader, Kamsack, Fort Qu’Appelle and Estevan are good news. But there happens to be a lot of doctors in this province. And doctors tend to come and go. For the provincial government to spend this much effort announcing the arrival of a handful is more than a little suspicious.
In fact, it’s quite suspicious, given all this came a week after the legislature saw about 70 protestors from Craik offering serious concerns their doctor is being forced out of town by the Five Hills Health Region. The Craik protestors being joined by others as far away as Coronach and as close as Central Butte suggests that perhaps the government isn’t quite telling the whole story when it comes to its success in finding rural doctors.
Moreover, the government has been under fire for a lot of other health issues.
First, there has been the money and resources spent on “lean” training that has included sending regional and provincial health officials to the U.S. to tour an airbag factory in Utah.
And then there is the problem of seniors’ care that the government would have us believe is confined to a few nursing homes in the cities. Well, according to the Provincial Ombudsman Mary McFadyen, the complaints she is getting after being assigned to look into the matter are “widespread” across the province.
Finally, the Sask. Party government has most recently found itself under siege over the cost of ambulance fees that are much higher than other provinces and certainly much higher for rural people forced to pay more for mileage and for inter-hospital transfers.
Rural and Remote Health Minister Greg Ottenbreit’s explanation that there have been other priorities is not good enough.
Delivering good health care to rural Saskatchewan requires more than tooting your own horn over the hiring of a few doctors.
