By Mario deSantis, November 28, 1999

Yesterday, as I read the article "Negative stats discouraging(1)" I became disgusted and my thoughts swirled around the last research performed by the Health Services Utilization and Research Commission (HSURC). This research(2), costing thousands and thousands of dollars of taxpayers' money, suggests that rural health has improved since health reform were implemented in 1993. I made fun of these reductionist researchers(3), but now that I read the above mentioned social statistics I realize the atrocious consequences of the present governmental direction in healthcare. Healthcare is supposed to progressively support healthy communities and healthy people; instead, the latest 1998 figures from Statistics Canada picture a desperate condition of the health status of our population. I report below a brief summary of these statistics:

• Saskatchewan has the highest crime rate in Canada
• Saskatchewan has the highest rate of sexual offences in Canada
• The Saskatchewan youth crime rate has been the highest in Canada
• The Saskatchewan infant mortality is the second highest in Canada, behind the Northwest Territories
• Saskatchewan has maintained for the last ten years the highest rate of impaired driving charges in Canada

The writers of this article conclude "...to even be among the worst is enough to drive a person to drink..." This remind me of the times, when in the late 70s, while working under the Saskatchewan Health-Care Association (SHA), I would come back home and I would express my disappointment to my wife Sharon "...these people at SHA are professional liars, they are paid a salary just to lie, I can't believe it..." Today, the situation is worse, we have a corrupted government which has alienated the public at large, and researchers are selling their souls. How long more should we endure such emperors with no clothes?

Endnotes

1. Negative stats discouraging, SP Opinons, The StarPhoenix, November 26, 1999, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

2. Assessing the Impact of the 1993 Acute Care Funding Cuts to Rural Saskatchewan Hospitals, by Health Services Utilization and Research Commission (HSURC), Summary Report No. 13, September 1999, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

3. Fragmented Research comes to the help of Saskatchewan Reform, by Mario deSantis, September 28, 1999