(Editor’s note: This letter was written in reply to a letter written by Souris-Moose Mountain MP Ed Komarnicki, which appeared in the May 27 issue of the Mercury under the headline “MP says Conservatives support health system.”)
The Editor,
This is how I feel about the Conservatives and the health care system we have here in Saskatchewan. I was released from Regina General Hospital in the end of October 2014. My doctors did not want me to do any travel due to my health conditions, but I had to travel back and forth to Regina three to five times a week.
I was forced and had no choice but to do my dialysis in Regina since health nurses only work three days a week in Estevan.
I was on a waiting list to get into Estevan dialysis but people behind me got in before I did, and they call it a "fair system.”
I called the offices of MLA Doreen Eagles, the Premier of Saskatchewan Brad Wall and the Health-care Minister of Saskatchewan Dustin Duncan, but they did nothing for me. Just take it or leave it, they said.
So, I had to travel on very bad highways in the winter, and had to pay someone to drive me due to my heart surgery and my amputated leg, for my dialysis three times a week and my many, many doctors appointments.
This cost me $2,600 each month for fuel, a driver and wearing out my truck. They ignored the fact my doctors gave me strict instructions not to travel AT ALL for 12 weeks as my heart surgery healed.
I have not received any financial assistance from the government. All I got was to pay more tax. Now, I'm at home doing my dialysis after a stressful six months of travelling to Regina, and after taking my training for dialysis at home, now I am a nurse, custodian, provider and administrator.
Am I paid for being all of that? No, no I am not.
That's what you get for being a Canadian citizen. As long as it's good for the government, they don't care if it's good for us people in Saskatchewan.
What a joke the things the Conservative government has done with our health-care system.
Ron Weinrauch
Estevan
