This fall might be a good time for the provincial government to introduce legislation to eliminate Saskatchewan's health regions in the name of efficiencies and in an attempt to depoliticize the process of governance.
When hospital boards were replaced by district health boards and finally evolved into 13 geographically large health regions, the public's interest in the selection of the governing bodies pretty well disappeared. An attempt to select a district and regional health board through an election process was an abject failure. About 12 per cent of the population was interested in voting for health board representatives. That paved the way for the appointment process, which, in turn, has become an increasingly politicized situation that requires correction.
Regional health authorities, in theory, are fine, but not in practice.
Examples of favouritism being shown to selected communities in each region, run rampant. In some instances they are only perceived, in other cases, they are blatantly real.
Mini-administrative and management dynasties are built in each sector, requiring ever-increasing dollars to maintain while providing salary increases on a yearly basis.
The fact that there is no democratic process to follow means that bureaucracy begins to rule the day, and the real functions and jobs that need to be done, get clouded over, not clarified.
With a total population of just under 1.1 million, does Saskatchewan really need 13 health agencies delivering the same product and service? Especially if none of them are democratically selected?
We have already heard of instances wherein health regions are banding together to implement savings in terms of purchases of supplies and equipment. Why not extrapolate that to the conclusion?
Why are 13 regions competing against one another in the search for physicians and nurses while gobbling up additional tax dollars?
Why do communities such as Nipawin, Tisdale, Kindersley, Estevan and Melville (to name only a few) send out shots over the bow of regional health authorities, claiming that favouritism toward a central office dynamic is hurting their chances of moving forward with their own health care projects?
Perhaps it's time for the provincial government and the Health Ministry to assess the situation we now find ourselves in, and start to send out some trial balloons regarding the possibility of centralizing health care in Saskatchewan to one, or at the most, two obvious geographic locations. From that point on, health centres of excellence can be developed, unfettered by regional office interference, bureaucracy building and favouritism.
In other words, those worthy of providing additional services, will make their business and social case and be rewarded accordingly.
At least we would be facing up to the reality that health care delivery is a highly politicized business that is subject to a lot of meddling. So why not put it squarely in the hands of the elected representatives and their direct appointees?
With that in place, when they mess up, they can be replaced, which is not the case with the current system we are trying to make work with only limited success, here in Saskatchewan.
