By Mario deSantis, November 30, 1999

Few minutes ago, I browsed the web site of The StarPhoenix, and I read today's article "Recruiting war among districts unacceptable(1)".( written Monday published today) The authors of this article state that they are utterly insane at the bidding war taking place among the districts to hire new graduating nurses. I already expressed the hypocritical behaviour of our healthcare political and administrative leaders, who, instead to clean up our own house in order first, shift the blame to everybody else but themselves(2).

In justifying the offering of the $2,000 cash bursary to the graduating nurses, Brian Morgan, vice-president of the Saskatoon District Health, says "...We have to ensure we're competitive..." We must not forget that Brian Morgan is a product of the Saskatchewan Association of Health Organizations, an organization which under the law and order leadership of Brian Rourke(3) can't "...recognize an asset from a hole in the ground(4)(5)..." Therefore, Brian Morgan's claim that his district has to be competitive must be taken with a grain of salt; in fact, it is more likely that Morgan's claim is just another move by our incompetent healthcare administrators to create an environment of total confusion where they can shift the blame to the provincial and federal governments and come out either as the saviours of our health care insurance system or as change agents for a so called dual and more competitive health care system(6). Either ways, our incompetent healthcare administrators will be the winners, as usual at the expense of everybody else, over any possible change of government; therefore, the supervision of the operations of the districts by the Provincial Auditor should become an ongoing essential service of the Legislative Assembly.

The authors of the above mentioned article state that "...it should be up to the government, not individual districts, to attract nurses to serve in Saskatchewan hospitals...". In addition, they state that the government has failed in "...its health reform..., that it has failed to develop a coherent plan to meet Saskatchewan's needs or to share any vision it has for health care..."

We know that both the provincial government and the Saskatchewan Association of Health Organizations (SAHO) have pursued a re-engineering scheme of health care through the implementation of the Saskatchewan Health Information Network (SHIN)(7)(8). We also know that this re-engineering scheme was designed to cut the number of working nurses in this province(9). As a consequence, to ask this government to address the shortage of nurses doesn't make sense anymore, it is just too late to rewire the minds of Premier Romanow and his friends(10). What we need is to admit our own mistakes and look for transformational changes(11) leading to a new government where our leaders have a shared vision of healthcare with their citizens and where these same leaders are able to walk their talk.

Endnotes

1. Recruiting war among districts unacceptable, Opinions, The StarPhoenix, Saskatoon, SK, Canada, November 29, 1999, Local time: 09:35:39AM http://www.saskstar.sk.ca/

2. Saskatchewan Nursing Shortage: Shifting the blame for our own Incompetence, by Mario deSantis, November 27, 1999

3. Never enough money for SAHO, by Mario deSantis, March 30, 1999

4. TRYING TO GRASP THE INTANGIBLE: The assets that really count are the ones accountants can't count--yet. Here's one way to put a dollar value on corporate knowledge. Thomas A. Stewart, Join Tom Stewart in the Fortune Forum on CompuServe (GO FFORUM) or by E-mail: 74774.3555

5. Health Reform in Saskatchewan: Digging Holes in the Ground, by Mario deSantis and reviewed by James deSantis, October 20, 1999

6. Health debate rages in Alta. Legislature: Klein denies opposition charge that private health care would violate NAFTA, The StarPhoenix, November 23, 1999, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

7. What Happened to the Saskatchewan Health Information Network (SHIN)?, by Mario deSantis, June 10, 1999 http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign/desantisArticles/desantis57/SHIN.html

8. Healthcare in Saskatchewan: Getting ready for re-reengineering and shifting the blame, by Mario deSantis, October 31, 1999

9. Systems Dynamics in Education: Thinking Differently, by Mario deSantis, February 20, 1999

10.  Rewiring The Corporate Brain: Using The New Science To Rethink How We Structure And Lead Organizations, by Danah Zohar, Berrett-Koehler, 1997

11. Refer to relevant articles by Mario deSantis published in the North Central Internet News