By Mario deSantis, March 14, 2000

The Health Care system is breaking down, and I can see in the hiring of Louise Simard as CEO of the Saskatchewan Association of Health Organizations(1) (SAHO), a move for further dividing our quality of health care as either rural or urban.

Simard took the credit for health reform in Saskatchewan when as Minister of Health she published the paper vision "A Saskatchewan Vision for Health(2)." This paper vision formed the framework for the ensuing health legislation and the implementation of the so called Wellness model of health. The Wellness model was responsible for the closure of hospitals in rural Saskatchewan, for the drastic reduction of acute and long term beds across the province, and for the shortage of nurses.

 You would have thought that with all this cutting of health resources the health system would be more efficient and more economical, instead health care has turned into a gambling casino, it absorbs 40% of the provincial budget, and the province has the second highest pro-capita health expenditures among all the provinces(3). No doubt that health care is mismanaged, and no doubt that the government has been the primary source for such a disastrous situation. Health care districts were supposed to be independent agencies, instead they have been puppets of both the government and SAHO.

Louise Simard is the present wife of Honourable Dwaine Lingenfelter, Deputy Premier and Minister of Agriculture, and her position of CEO for SAHO will create an additional political pressure leading to a more autocratic governmental direction in health care. This more autocratic direction is also supported by Minister of Health Pat Atkinson when she stated that she would like to see fewer boards and fully appointed board members(4), and it is also supported by many union members who have been demonstrating against private health care. Saskatchewan has been the first province to turn health care to a gambling casino, and now, as a reactionary move, I can see Saskatchewan to be the first province in implementing legislation to make a new kind of centralized public health care to the detriment of rural Saskatchewan and people at large. Louise Simard is a lawyer and she will certainly express her own "written word(5)" to our autocratic bureaucracy.

Endnotes

Quote by Donella Meadows "challenging a paradigm is not a part-time job. It is not sufficient to make your point once and then blame the world for not getting it. The world has a vested interest in, a commitment to, not getting it. The point has to be made patiently and repeatedly, day after day after day" ftp://sysdyn.mit.edu/ftp/sdep/Roadmaps/RM1/D-4143-1.pdf http://iisd1.iisd.ca/pcdf/meadows/default.htm

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

1. Simard taking over SAHO, CBC Saskatchewan http://sask.cbc.ca/ Web Posted | Mar 13 2000 2:18 PM

2. A Saskatchewan Vision for Health, The Honourable Louise Simard, Minister of Health, August 1992, Saskatchewan Health

3. PUBLIC FUNDING FOR HEALTH CARE STRONG IN SASKATCHEWAN, Government News Release, Health - 918, December 16, 1999 http://www.gov.sk.ca/newsrel/1999/12/16-918.html

4. The Saga of Health Reform: Pat Atkinson Wants Fewer Health Boards and Fully Appointed Boards, by Mario deSantis and reviewed by James deSantis, October 16, 1999 http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign/desantisArticles/desantis73/healthreform.html

5. Pat Atkinson, the Shortage of Nurses and the Rule of Law, by Mario deSantis, January 26, 2000. In this article I implicitly describe the "written word" as a directive - just or not just- sanctioned autocratically by an authoritarian office http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign/desantisArticles/2000/desantis103/writtenword.html