Commissioner Ken Fyke has not understood yet that the health care problems are of a leadership and structural nature and has creatively stated "We can pay for the service by raising taxes through the public sector, we can bring additional revenue in through premiums, or... user fees(2) ." In the meantime the commissioner will be sending 400,000 surveys to Saskatchewan homes, as well as holding TV forums, maintaining a web site, and setting up a 1-800 number(3). Just to have an indication of one direct cost of this study we can multiply the 400,000 surveys by the nominal unit cost of $1 per survey and we have a cost of $400,000. And I am not sure if these $400,000 are part of Ken Fyke's $2 million budget.

Dr. John Horne, a Winnipeg health economist and advisor to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, has said "We know we have too few nurses coast to coast. We have too few physicians, particularly specialty physicians. We have too few pharmacists, too few lab technologists, too few ultrasound techs and respiratory techs. There's an emerging shortage of health care workers(4)." In the last three years health care spending has increased by 22% yet our surgical waiting times have increased, and they are still increasing in Saskatchewan(5).

According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information most of the new spending has been used on capital projects. Dr. Brent Burbridge, head of medical imaging for the College of Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan, said there is a "gross deficit" of capital equipment funding in many provinces. "Things are desperate. I don't believe we are providing state of the art care here, I can tell you that. And that's because we don't have the most current equipment(6)."

In the last years we have experienced the downsizing of our health facilities, and as a consequence a sizeable portion of the above mentioned 22% increase in health care spending has been allocated for the implementation of obsolete Information Technology systems. And in Saskatchewan this system is called the Saskatchewan Health Information System (SHIN), a system which has pumped approximately $40 million into the sewage(7), not to speak about the lateral and consequential misuse of health resources.

The saga of health care mismanagement is continuing and we will be ready to tell you additional stories.

References/Endnotes

1. Health system bows to market, OPINIONS, October 13, 2000, The StarPhoenix, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

2. First report outlines health care challenges, CBC Saskatchewan, http://sask.cbc.ca Web Posted | Oct 6 2000 9:35 PM EDT

3. First report outlines health care challenges, CBC Saskatchewan, http://sask.cbc.ca Web Posted | Oct 6 2000 9:35 PM EDT

4. $64-billion insufficient to stop bleeding, Brad Evenson, National Post, October 12, 2000

5. Surgical waiting game continues: Former task force members lament slow progress in shortening province's waiting lists, by Murray Mandryk, The StarPhoenix, October 14, 2000, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

6. X-Ray Labs dangerously outdated. Radiologists sound alarm: Equipment so archaic that even Cambodian refugee camp doesn't want it, Tom Arnold, National Post, October 12, 2000

7. Saskatchewan Health Care: Confirmation Of The Most Mismanaged System In Canada, by Mario deSantis, October 12, 2000