Recent upheavals within the Sun Country Health Region appear to substantiate our earlier suggestion that this province's regional health system requires a complete makeover if not outright demolition.
With slightly more than one million people to serve, we find it rather laughable that Saskatchewan's government requires 13 or 14 health regions when two would more suitably serve the purpose.
It has become increasingly apparent as these health regions evolve into a second decade of questionable practices, that the systems they invoke are top heavy in administration and subject to the three ism ills that always enter the wonderful worlds of politics and business, namely nepotism, cronyism and favouritism.
Sun Country is just the latest region in which questions regarding process and procedure have been raised. We're certain all regions are inflicted with similar dilemmas of empire building at the expense of efficiencies.
Appointed boards of governance can only exacerbate the problem, not resolve it.
If the 13 regional authorities could be reduced to two north and south sectors, then at least some semblance of efficiency might surface.
For starters, having a health system rolled into one package would certainly allow for the dismantling of the already suspect Saskatchewan Association of Health Organizations (SAHO) whose sole reason for existence these days appears to be as a buffer to protect the Ministry of Health from the real world of health care delivery. Appointed regional health boards are the second line of defence. Both need to be eliminated at a saving of several tens of millions of dollars in administration costs alone.
Saskatchewan's population, which barely matches the current population of the city of Calgary, or one-fifth the population of Toronto, does not warrant 13 separate agencies all attempting to outdo one another while competing for medical equipment, supplies, doctors, nurses and professional support staffers.
Instead of building miniature administrative empires with suspect, but professionally sounding layers upon layers of upper and mid-management positions, perhaps it's time for Health Minister McMorris to take the courageous but correct step in amalgamating the system into a form that he and his ministry might actually be able to control and monitor.
Right now health care in Saskatchewan is heading into a swirling vortex of chaos. That chaos even includes the most recent decision to provide more access to private clinics for surgical procedures with payment coming from the public purse. We understand that some of that was being done prior to the recent announcements, but this latest trend only widens the doorway to more private domination (which we already know doesn't work well) of what is supposed to be a publicly driven health system.
We do believe it's time for Saskatchewan to bid adieu to multiple health regions, appointed boards, SAHO and the many and sundry layers of administrations found within them.
In other words, we should be seeking solutions, not excuses when it comes to health care costs.
It's time for a cleanup and cleanout for the sake of the hard pressed taxpayer and health care delivery system.
