The province is moving to a single, centrally located laundry to serve its health regions, and it will be privately owned.
The decision came after a lengthy investigation into how best to deal with aging infrastructure at the existing six regional laundries in the province, including one in Yorkton operated by the Sunrise Health Region.
Andrew Will, CEO of 3sHealth summed up the current state of existing laundries as generally needing replacement.
"The Saskatoon plant closed in November 2012," said Will, citing "failing infrastructure and safety concerns.
"And the Yorkton and Regina plants are well beyond their useful life."
So there was no question something needed to be done.
And on the surface a seemingly extensive review of options did take place.
That said, there is little in way of a surprise here. Centralization in health has been a long term evolution, one which had seen laundry serviced trimmed to six locations in the past.
As in most things in Saskatchewan, we are always left with juggling the fact that with just more than one million people one facility is often practical in terms of economy-of-scale, but that must be balanced with regional fairness and the implications of transportation.
That is at the essence of the laundry decision.
There may be value in a single, large laundry, but in doing that more than 40 people in Yorkton will lose their current positions. There is a social cost to such upheaval, even if, as Will has suggested, efforts will be made to get them jobs within the health region.
Regardless, the 21 full-time equivalent positions at the laundry will be gone, and with it the wages locally spent by those 40 workers. That is less dollars flowing through the local economy as a cost to centralization of services.
There is also the 'green' impact of the decision.
Will said they are expecting 20 million gallon water saving with a centralized plant, but Micheal Buchholzer, Director of Environmental Services with the City of Yorkton estimates the water utility will lose $75,000 in revenue with the closure, or three-quarters of a million, without rate increases over the initial 10-year contract for the new service.
Then there is the carbon footprint of a fleet of trucks hauling laundry to-and-fro across the province, and the impact of highways, especially secondary and thin-membrane ones. Such costs are very hard to accurately determine, but come with centralization.
And then there is the politics of the move. That the laundry service is being handed over to a private operator, and most likely away from unionized workers is not surprising given the stripe of the current government. Whether one agrees with private sector business, over public, or not, the current decision was an expectation right from the start of the review process. It might be contended that the process was completely open, but in the end the result seemed to end up conveniently falling on the side of current political ideology in Regina.
So the expected has happened, and now we will see if the local disruption and loss of jobs can be balanced by real savings by the centralized facility as the government suggests.
