The City of Estevan will be participating in the latest effort to link communities with the regional health system, but it might be a tenuous and temporary link-up if some restrictions on dialogue aren't lifted, said Estevan Mayor Gary St. Onge.
"We're not going to be muzzled, and it seems that if the participants are being asked to abide by the Sun Country Health Region's code of conduct regarding board members, we won't be participating. We are not Sun Country board members, and we don't need to follow their code. If we hear or see something we don't agree with, we're reserving the right to speak up even if their board members can't," St. Onge said.
Marga Cugnbet, Sun Country's interim chief executive officer, said that so far the response to the idea of forming Community Leadership Networks to complement and enhance health care partnerships as part of the Community Health Advisory Network has been positive.
The health region has been divided into four subdivisions for the purpose of rolling out the Leadership Networks, she said. The first meeting for Subdivision 2, the more northern/eastern wing of the health region, will be held in early April followed by a meeting in Subdivisions 1, 3 and 4. Estevan is located in Subdivision 3 and includes an area as far west and north as Halbrite and as far east as Gainsborough including Lampman, Oxbow, Carnduff and Torquay among other communities and embracing five rural municipalities.
Subdivision 4 includes Weyburn and the central part of the health region while Subdivision 1 handles the western side of the region that includes Bengough, Coronach and Radville.
"If Estevan is not participating, that would be disappointing. If it's a problem regarding communication, then perhaps we'll have to take another look at the wording in the code of conduct," said Cugnet.
"We're anxious to have more two-way communication with everyone. These meetings that are being arranged will present the (subdivision) participants with an agenda of items that they are wanting to talk about as local users of the health system. If they want to talk more about services, other groups might want to talk about primary health care ... whatever is important or whatever is bothering them in each of the communities. They'll probably want to talk about physician recruitment when they hold the meeting that involves Estevan," said Cugnet.
Although not all board members will be available to attend all the subdivision meetings, Cugnet said she hoped a good number of them would be available for each session. Estevan's lone representative on the Sun Country board is Lori Carr.
St. Onge said Estevan's city council had at first indicated they weren't interested in this latest attempt to dialogue with Sun Country but later relented, figuring it could benefit the city to at least have a look at the situation and determine later if it was worth pursuing.
"So we replied to Sun Country's chairwoman Sharon Bauche about two weeks ago, saying we'd be represented at the first meeting. Councillor Roy Ludwig will probably be our representative since he's been working with the health-related matters so far," St. Onge said.
"We don't know why they're doing this. Maybe they've received instruction from the government to do more communicating, I don't know," said St. Onge.
"But we should at least have a voice at the table to begin with and we're in a group with other communities who have similar problems, so we'll be there. I just hope the health region is ready to be up front. We totally understand the need to respect privacy and confidentially on some things that just can't be discussed in public. We're not referring to that when we talk about not being muzzled," St. Onge said.
He was referring to sections in the Sun Country's code that notes that once a decision is made and passed, dissenting voices are not to be raised by members since they are to be heard as one body.
Having to abide by that edict would be a non-starter for Estevan, St. Onge said.
"They won't muzzle us or we won't belong. It's simple," the mayor said in conclusion.
