By Mario deSantis, November 27, 1999

It has been some time that we have been repetitively told that the Nursing shortage has been the cause of the closure of many beds across the province, at least this is what our healthcare big brains(1) have been telling us. The big brains and their pack of loyal politicians(2), bureaucrats(3), bean counters(4), and researchers(5) have masterminded the biggest healthcare re-engineering plan(6)(7) which ever happened in Saskatchewan or Canada. They realized that the labour costs of health care are in excess of 75% of total expenditures, they made the computation that on the average one medical doctor would generate so many hundreds of thousands of dollars of healthcare expenditures, they forgot that doctors and nurses are core competencies of the healthcare system and they went ahead with the re-engineering scheme to increase the healthcare productivity by the use of museum technologies(8). The big brains excluded the participation of doctors in their scheme(9), and reduced the number of working nurses by cutting beds(10), by cutting in half the enrolment of nursing students and by lengthening their nursing program by two years(11). The result of this re-engineering scheme is that we are now spending more money in healthcare that at any other time, that healthcare is in a mess, that doctors are leaving the province, and that there is a shortage of nurses.

To alleviate the nursing shortage, the Saskatoon District Health (SDH) has decided to offer $2,000 to all graduating registered nurses who agree to work in this district for at least one year(12). Says vice-president Brian Morgan "This nursing shortage is a Canadian phenomenon. It will exist for a while in this country." Other districts such as Prince Albert and Regina are already offering financial incentives. So, as we are accusing the Alberta government for implementing a dual healthcare system(13), we are making fun of our own system by playing the market place, putting districts against each other, by waging a "bidding war" for the appropriation of nurses, and by putting nurses against each other. Again, we experience a healthcare management by confusion and backstabbing. Saskatchewan Union of Nurses president Rosalee Longmoore expressed her wisdom in this way "...I don't think this is the way to go. What about the people who have been working in the district for 20 years?..."

I repeat myself the same question, over and over again "When are we going to learn how to do our own home work before backstabbing each other and blaming Canadian phenomena for all our own problems?"

Endnotes

1. Healthcare Payroll and SAHO's Big Brains, by Mario deSantis, November 20, 1999

2. Our socialist and "third way" Premier Romanow has been the premier supporter of the so called Saskatchewan Vision for Health. He went so far as to say that within his "Saskatchewan Way", our healthcare system was the shining light to the world.

3. One of the main architects of the Saskatchewan Health Information Network (SHIN)--along with the big brains of SAHO--was Neil Gardner, former Associate Deputy Minister of Health with the previous conservative government and now Chief of Information Technology at Saskatchewan Health.

4. Refer to URL: http://www.gov.sk.ca/health/ March 1998 (Saskatchewan Health Information Network, Backgrounder, Benefit Analysis and savings of $58M to 114M, by Ernst & Young)

5. Health Services Utilization and Research Commission (HSURC). Fragmented Research comes to the Help of Saskatchewan Reform, by Mario deSantis, September 28, 1999

6. Managing Information Technology-A Vision for the Future-Information Technology Architecture, Saskatchewan Health, April 1995. Also, refer to 1995 Saskatchewan Health & SAHO request of proposal for SHIN.

7. A Historical Perspective of The Saskatchewan Health Information Network (SHIN),by Mario deSantis and James deSantis, March 1998 http://www3.sk.sympatico.ca/desam/paper-SHIN.htm

8. A Museum Mentality Is Cheating Our Economy: Healthcare, SHIN and the Synchrotron, by Mario deSantis and reviewed by James deSantis, November 8, 1999

9. Medical association won't back SHIN bill, The StarPhoenix, May 2, 1998, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

10. A Saskatchewan Vision for Health, Hon. Louise Simard, Minister of Health, August 1992, Saskatchewan Health, Saskatchewan

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

12. Graduating nurses offered cash incentives, by Jason Warick, The StarPhoenix, November 26, 1999, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

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