By Mario deSantis, March 7, 2000

The so called Saviours of Saskatchewan Health Care, Premier Romanow and Minister of Health Pat Atkinson, have been begging the federal government for more money to sustain health care, yet they have played a leading role in undermining health care, they have played the spectre of cutting services and jobs(1)(2) and at the same time they had CUPE members demonstrate for saving jobs and Medicare(3). It is puzzling, these misguiding Tin Pot dictators have learnt the Machiavellian art to be in power against the interest of the public at large. These Tin Pot dictators are a bunch of indecent spin-doctors, with no understanding and with no heart.

Our past articles have been quite indicative of the kind of leadership we have, and with a divided province and country it will take a long time before we can get rid of such Tin Pot dictators. Monday March 6, we have the hypocritical Pat Atkinson shouting for more hard cash from Ottawa(4). As the saying has it: "Money talks, b........t walks(5)" So to the asking of more money for Honourable Atkinson and her friends(6) we are going to respond with more of her own deceptive statements.

In our past article "Fragmented Research comes to the help of Saskatchewan Reform?(7)" we pointed out how this government spent money in a biased research for spin-doctoring their own failure in administering health care. Today, I have another news on how our supposed best health research centre--Health Services Utilization and Research Commission (HSURC)--has contributed to the demise of our Saskatchewan Health Care system.

Our health care leaders have led health reform through paper visions and the pursuing of paper goals. They have called health reform under the paper name "Wellness Model" a model of health care where home care takes a more relevant role with respect to acute and long term care. Now, we have to understand that home care is not a standardized health care service and it doesn't fall under the present Canada Health Act. Therefore, our astute researchers and bean counters understood, in paper, that if they could cut acute and long term care beds by delivering more home care services they not only would save money but they would be able to transfer health care costs to the health care recipients as well.

So, the Wellness Model was launched in Saskatchewan not as a new vision of health care but as an expedient way to save health care money and cut services in rural and urban Saskatchewan. As a consequence, the Saskatchewan government conspired in the demise of our health care system under the "Wellness Model" banner. Pat Atkinson was sincere when she said that her bureaucracy had not been listening for the past nine years to the concerns voiced by our health care workers(8). In fact, her bureaucracy, not only didn't listen to our health care workers, professionals and doctors but continued to cut acute and long term care beds along with the cutting of enrolment of new nursing students.

Such down sizing policy directions have contributed to the present critical shortage of nurses(9) and the conversion of our ever expensive health system to a gambling casino(10). Now, we must also understand that the "Wellness Model" was in part the brain child of the Health Services Utilization and Research Commission (HSURC). This is another guarded secret of our governmental administration and a guarded secret of the health care community in Canada.

The HSURC has a board composed of its own Big Brains, among whom we find Dr. Dan de Vlieger, eminent professor of political science at the University of Regina and President of the Canadian Health Association. Another Big Brain of the commission was the researcher Dr. Stephen Lewis, former CEO of HSURC.

Now I am going to provide you with some scandalous excerpts of an article published by the Globe and Mail(11) so that we all can appreciate the kind of deception produced by the HSURC and delivered by this linear thinking Big Brain in the name of better health care and under the banner of the "Wellness Model", that is homecare.

..."Society is very uncomfortable with an empty hospital bed, so the best thing we can do with it is blow it up. If we don't, there won't be any cost savings," said Steven Lewis, chief executive of the Saskatchewan Health Services Utilization and Research Commission. Despite the hue and cry about hospital closings and bed reductions, Mr. Lewis believes governments have not gone far enough...

...In the most extensive research done to date on the question in Canada, Mr. Lewis's commission found that adult surgical and medical patients could be discharged from hospital, on average, two days sooner. Those patients could be provided homecare, without any effect on their health outcome, at a savings of $830 per case... Research to date has focused on substitution of homecare for acute care...

..."As a health system, we should concentrate on saving big dollars over the long term rather than nickel-and-diming seniors," Mr. Lewis said. And the way to find out how best to save those big dollars, he said, is by investing in research...

..."One of the big scandals in this country is how we got so far into medicare with so little knowledge. We're willing to spend $80-billion a year on the system but reluctant to spend a few million to research whether the money is well spent," Mr. Lewis said, shaking his head...

Endnotes

General reference: Articles by Mario deSantis published by North Central Internet News

1. Future uncertain for rural hospitals: closure possible because of tight budgets, Atkinson, by Neil Scott, The StarPhoenix, February 3, 2000, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

2. The Big Question for Saskatchewan Health Care: Underfunding or Mismanagement? By Mario deSantis, March 3, 2000

3. Rally for health care. The Canadian Union of Public Employees says the health care system is in critical condition. CBC Saskatchewan http://sask.cbc.ca/ Web Posted | Mar 3 2000 6:25 PM EST

4. Federal health minister rejects calls for more health payments to provinces CBC Saskatchewan http://sask.cbc.ca/ Web Posted | Mar 6 2000 9:41 AM EST

5. The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business As Usual, (The New Marketplace: Word Gets Around) by Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, David Weinberger, February 2000 Perseus Books; ISBN: 0738202444 http://www.cluetrain.com/book.html

6. Governments must stop to serve themselves and their friends, by Mario deSantis, February 12, 2000

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

8. MINISTER APPEALS TO NURSES, Government of Saskatchewan, News Releases, Apr 12, 1999 Health 99 - 287 http://www.gov.sk.ca/newsrel/1999Apr/287.99041205.html

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

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

11. Behind Closed Doors: The struggle over homecare. Research is skimpy on how much is saved, by AndrÈ Picard, The Globe and Mail http://www.globeandmail.ca/series/homecare/savings.html