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A Message for Health Minister Pat Atkinson:
Wear Clean Underwear

By Mario deSantis, February 9, 2000

Dr. David Naylor, a Toronto's epidemiologist, stated in a 1992 interview with the Globe and Mail that "...there is no corporation in Canada that would put up with the lack of management we have in health care...(1)" As Saskatchewan is concerned, since 1992 we have experienced the downsizing of healthcare along with a progressive increase of funding. Therefore, the mismanagement of health care resources is continuing and it is at the core of our health care crisis, in Saskatchewan and I believe across Canada as well. While dozens and dozens of millions of dollars have been misspent for the closure of the Plains Health Centre in Regina and the so-called implementation of the Saskatchewan Health Information Network (SHIN), we have a hypocritical Minister of Health, Pat Atkinson, who has stated that she is "extremely worried" about the future of the health system across Canada and in Saskatchewan(2).

This is what our Big Brains(3) are saying in Saskatchewan "the nursing problem is a Canada wide problem", "the Y2K nightmare is the government's problem", "our patients die because our doctors are not precise in their communication with health districts", "healthcare is underfunded ","we need to save money by having fewer boards", "we need to produce more nurses and recruit nurses from other jurisdictions", "we need to retain our medical graduates and doctors", "we need this... and we need that..." This is not a sustainable healthcare system and this is not a problem of underfunding, it is poor management, it is a corrupted system, it is poor leadership.

Pat Atkinson and her entourage of Big Brains have no common sense, they make decisions raising their fingers to the sky(4), they have the excellent skill to shift the blame of their incompetence to doctors, to nurses, to Ottawa, to somebody else but themselves. These Big Brains are so artificial and deceptive that they are unable to look at themselves in the mirror.

Just recently, one wheel chair patient has commented that the health system is so disorganized that she's had more than a hundred different workers in the past year(5); think about the continuity of care, think about the paper work behind the scheduling of healthcare workers, think about the madness of the healthcare workers in having new patients all the times, think about the patient and her embarrassment in seeing a new worker all the times.

We need a new leadership in health care, a leadership which is homegrown, which comes from the heart, that kind of leadership we learned from our moms as Rhonda Abrams explains in her book "Wear Clean Underwear(6)". Please Pat Atkinson, try to Wear Clean Underwear.

Endnotes

1. The Road to Recovery, The Globe and Mail, April 27 to May 1, 1992, Invitation by the Regina Health Board to comment on the Atkinson Report, by Mario deSantis, May 8, 1992 http://www3.sk.sympatico.ca/desam/paper-Atkinson-may08-92.htm

2. Atkinson's hospital 'hit list' blank: Health minister denies she plans to close hospitals but can't rule out option, by Neil Scott, The StarPhoenix, February 4, 2000, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

3. Saskatchewan Healthcare: Breaking the Law & Mismanagement, by Mario deSantis, January 20, 2000

4. Pat Atkinson: raising the finger and turning healthcare to a gambling casino, by Mario deSantis, February 3, 2000

5. Home care patients complain of nonstop new faces, CBC Saskatchewan, http://sask.cbc.ca/ Web Posted | Feb 4 2000 5:51 PM EST

6. Wear Clean Underwear: Business Wisdom From Mom, by Rhonda Abrams, Villard, 1999, [ISBN 0-375-50192-4], http://www.mgeneral.com/5-top/99-top/abrams.htm