The system itself is either flawed or being poorly managed, but something will have to be done to soon to put Saskatchewan's front-line acute care health system back together.
When we first started scrutinizing the delivery of health services in the newly created health regions back in 2002 and 2003, we thought it was just the southeast sector where flaws were pronounced. But we have since learned that they are inherent throughout the province.
We have an overabundance of administration types and an underwhelming supply of front-line care givers. Many of the administration types have been pulled from the front-line trenches, trading their smocks for Blackberries and varnished desks.
We find it a sad state of affairs to learn that births in Estevan will be going down substantially rather than upwards to match the increase in total population, simply due to a lack of trained professionals. In fact, giving birth anywhere in the Sun Country Health Region is going to be a challenge. What does that say for a region that is supposed to be delivering uncompromising health care to over 60,000 residents? Expectant mothers will be told their only alternative will be to head to Regina to give birth. How many of them will be sorely tempted to just stay there once they have successfully delivered? We can hardly blame them. If our health region can't provide even this simplest of services, what are the chances with more complicated medical conditions? Regina is already overburdened.
We learn that we're having to rely more and more on visiting surgeons from Regina and Yorkton to fill out the local operating room schedules. That is total regression from previous practices.
We have no idea how our addictions and mental health needs are being met with diminished roles and numbers among the professional staff there. Occupational and physical therapies now taking on lesser roles, hard pressed physicians who are still slugging away on the front lines are getting tired as the health region seems to be stuck in the old two steps forward, three steps back situation.
Imaging services are farmed out, apparently the local region has nobody available to provide that service either.
Of course this all means the dollars that have been allocated to Sun Country to advance health care in the southeast, are being sent out of the region to pay for these contracted services being provided by other regions and agencies.
The Sun Country's annual budget has risen from around $80 million in 2002-03 to $135 million this year. The population has risen by about five per cent but it appears as if the health care services have receded.
But as we point the accusing finger in one direction, we must glance askance at the rest of the province and see there is no real progress being enjoyed anywhere else either. Regina is shipping their problems over to Edmonton or Calgary (kidney transplants, specialized care for cancer victims et al), Saskatoon can't handle their current load and the rest of the regions are locked in bidding wars with their provincial counterparts attempting to woo health care specialists away from one another with increasingly enriched bonus packages. In that war we win battles but we all lose in the long run.
Until the Saskatchewan College of Physicians and Surgeons comes up with a solution to find more family doctors and specialists and until the growing administration teams find some efficiencies of operation and scale, and until pharmaceutical costs are brought into line, we can only expect more of the same, or should we say, less of the same.
And we should be clear on this one matter too: privatization of health care services is definitely not the answer. That has been proven time and again. The problem requires much more imagination and skill.
Unfortunately we're not equipped to provide a whole basket of suggestions or answers, but we're trusting that someone who is directly involved in this convoluted health care game can.
