Dear Editor:
I have refrained from getting actively involved in the bed closure issue in Sun Country Health Region, having worked for a Health District in the past and understand that there are budgetary constraints involved. However, this latest action by Sun Country has me gasping in unbelief at the ignorance and arrogance of the Sun Country Health Region officials and the Board!
Finally the Sun Country Health Board deemed it time to arrange a meeting between their board and the Wawota & District Save Our Beds Committee, probably due to pressure from the government officials. The Committee, I am sure, took this to mean that the Sun Country officials and board were finally going to honestly sit down and listen to the facts presented and discuss the situation rationally. Instead, as I understand it, only two board members showed up, plus the A/CEO and Board Chair. Apparently the remainder of the board were not fully informed about this meeting or were told they were not required to attend. Would it not be common courtesy for the whole board to be present to hear the true facts? Getting the true facts first hand would seem to me to be the way a board should make a decision, not hearing the facts second hand from a couple of biased members of the board and the chair.
Then I read in local newspapers, the committee was asked how the health board could help with health care in this area. Has the Health Board and Administration not been listening to what the problem is? We have been asking to have the beds, which are desperately needed, reopened at Deer View Lodge for a full year. Asking that question is ludicrous! It just goes to prove that the present Health Board and Administration are not competent at all. I cannot believe that they do not know what the solution to this problem would be. Local residents, seniors who need adequate health care, physicians - all know what the solution would be and have made this widely known. Just adding more home care and adult day care was suggested by Sun Country. Home care and adult day care does not solve the problem of lack of beds and lack of needed care, i.e. 24 hour care, not just one or two hours a day. Funding spent there would be better spent by reopening the much needed beds at Deer View.
Then Sun Country talks about a Needs Assessment being required in this area and that they did not know that the private care home near Wawota had not been operating for several years. My question is - did they NOT do a Needs Assessment and check out the true facts BEFORE the beds were closed in Deer View. To me, this would seem to be how a decision should be made. Don't you check the true facts first before you make a decision?
I cannot believe the incompetence of the present Sun Country Health Board and the Sun Country administration. As each day passes, we fully realize just where this problem begins and with each passing action by Sun Country, they just reinforce to us their total incompetence.
Shirley Corkish,
Box 179,
Wawota, SK S0G 5A0
