60 Replies to “Cuts Like A Scalpel”

  1. oooh, that’s MEAN! I like it!
    In other news, its being noised about that Dalton’s looking at a 2% PST hike this year. Like, maybe in time for Christmas.
    Ontariariario! Your’s to plunder!

  2. It is a great ad and there is no doubt that the government needs to change. But what will the Sask Party do differently with health care. How will they change what is happening in rural Saskatchewan? I haven’t seen any plans from them to dramatically change the medicare system. As Einstein once said, “Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.” The fact is unless major changes are made to the medical system, change will not occur. This is true for any political party.
    Saskatchewan desperately needs to get rid of the NDP. But the Sask Party needs to change the system or they will be the ones defending a broken system 4 years from now.

  4. Kate, you mean that scary Conservative hidden agenda? The one where if you need an x-ray you go BUY one before lunch time? Instead of standing in line for the “free” one like a sheep waiting for shearing?
    That one?

  5. So.. is the SaskParty saying that they will reopen all of these rural hospitals? That will make the NDP drug plan look truly mickey mouse with the amount of dollars that will be needed to have low population areas have their own hospitals. (Note, I don’t support the NDP plan either). And if this is really is the SaskParty “Hidden Agenda”, I find it just as stupid as the NDP drug plan.

  6. did they close the hospital then open the trailer dump? or is that just an unlucky coincidence of signage?
    I like how all the hospital signage points left.
    NDP
    preach left,
    do left,
    none left.

  7. A “sign of the times”, huh? Well, at least they got that part correct.
    Once they drove the population of the province below the size of a major city in Alberta, I guess they figured they wouldn’t need to fund more medical facilities. To bad they failed to notice that the young worker and thier families were the ones leaving, and the old and infirm were the ones left behind.

  9. Hospital closures ARE a fact of life. How can you continue to provide the same services in the same places when the population drops significantly in an area? Or do you just bite the bullet and say that every little town will have its own hospital and ER? If so, ok, but there are huge financial issues with doing this.

  10. Echoing Todd, I’d ask the Sask party if they plan to reopen all these facilities. Gull Lake had an ER? Yes, the NDP is loathsome, but it’s dishonest to post ads like this without suggesting an alternative…

  11. Todd,
    The NDP has been the cause of the population drop. Why stay in an overtaxed, under developed province when there is one next door that has ample jobs, low taxation and a welcoming atmosphere.
    The point of the ad is that despite all the pontificating of the left on saving healthcare, the NDP has done more to hurt the system.
    enough

  12. Todd, BillBC, there’s this amazing thing called “private enterprise” where non-governmental organizations go out and open hospitals in small towns, and they make MONEY at it.
    See, in places where there are fewer patients they make up for that by charging more money. They save money by having special services like MRIs and PET scans and even operating rooms on a truck that comes around when you need it instead of sitting idle half the time. What’s more, they don’t have vast bureaucracies to feed so most of the cash goes to pay the doctors and nurses and keep the lights on in the building.
    But that’s the scary Conservative thing Kate was talking about. We wouldn’t want that, would we? Better to make the old lady with the busted hip travel two hours in an ambulance.
    Hell that’s why they make morphine, right?! “Give ‘er another hit Joe, she’s startin’ to make that noise again.”

  13. It’s a great fear and smear ad 🙂
    but OMG you cannot suggest that the SP reopen most of them.
    Todd hit the nail on the head, you can’t put say the Saskatoon City hospital down in say Consul. it is not feasible.
    I am hoping that this add is just smear and not hinting at a policy. I would hate to have to end up thinking the NDP are the responsible party. (I’m going to go bang my head on the wall to get rid of that idea)

  14. By the way, I seem to remember that back in the mists of ancient time when I was but a lad, the doctor used to be the one that drove around and the patient stayed in bed.
    They had this name for it, I think it was a “house call”.

  15. The Phantom – the SaskParty is not saying they’d bring in private hospitals. In fact, I’m sure if you’d ask them, they’d say they were against that idea. So I’m afraid that your point doesn’t hold water.
    enough – It’s a good point you make. I’d need to look at the Alberta numbers though. Has not Alberta also moved a lot more towards urban development from rural? I agree the NDP has not done well with keeping people in Sask, but I’m not so sure that any party could reverse the general continent wide change towards urban from rural.

  16. These hospitals and ER’s aren’t closing for lack of funding. They’re closing for lack of staffing.
    That’s the funny thing about the Tommy Douglas’ “universal” zero-tier health care system. You can force the citizens to use it, but you can’t force the doctors to stay and provide it.
    Besides – isn’t this that famous not-for-profit system? What does “economic sustainability” have to do with providing every resident equal access to emergency and medical care?
    It’s either not-for-profit – or it ain’t.

  17. You heard it here first:
    The Sask Party will get elected, realize that pouring money into hospital services for dwindling rural populations is a bad idea and the NDP will be criticizing them for it next election, albeit in a slightly hypocritical way.

  18. Kate – if I’m a doctor and I can make gobs of money, I’m going to move to the city. It would have to be a huge amount of extra cash to make me want to live in the rural areas. Sorry, that’s just the way I feel. I have the feeling that a lot of other young doctors being turned out feel the same way. And staffing shortages for nurses and doctors is not just a provincial issue, it’s an international one. So how exactly does the SaskParty plan to staff these hospitals when EVERYONE is having the same problem?
    And just because something is not-for-profit doesn’t mean that it has endless funding. A pragmatic conservative like you knows there is a limit to making equal access available. If the SaskParty is advocating privately run hospitals available in Saskatchewan, fine, they should advertise it. But they’re not. So what’s their plan for providing equal access to each citizen and staffing and reopening all these hospitals?

  19. The need isn’t for a full service operating hospital. But emergency hospitals with EMT service. In other provinces and some other health regions these facilities get attached to the long term health facility that still exist in many of these communities.
    The problem is that there are many rural people that are outside the 45 minute emergency response due to hospital closures. This need needs to be addressed.
    http://www.health.gov.sk.ca/adx/aspx/adxGetMedia.aspx?DocID=883,94,88,Documents&MediaID=611&Filename=ems-final-report.pdf
    There is also a real need for more helicopter emergency service up north and other first response issues. If you want a real eye opener drive around rural Southwest Saskatchewan. There emergency services are very far in some of those areas.

  20. Todd,
    Alberta has been reopening rural hospitals that they closed when they were getting there budgets under control. They made the same mistake. Reminds me of the BC NDPs great idea to control healthcare costs by cutting training of new doctors. Currently desparately searching for new docs.
    The jobs are in urban centers. Certainly when sasks creates new civil service jobs, they are in urban centers. Alberta again may show that job creation and population movement has been rural. The oil jobs I assume would not be centered in cities. Reminds me again of BC NDP deciding that forestry was “old” economy and instituting policies that would drive jobs out of forestry and into the “new” economy. More social engineering.
    enough

  21. Get real. What’s dishonest?
    “Is it a sign of the times, or a time to change?”
    That would be a question, eh and a completely honest question.
    As an addition closures were included with those closures due to lack of staff, that specifically is an HR issue. The employer sucks. That’s also truthful.
    Sucks to be dipper, eh.

  22. The greatest lie about this whole “not for profit” system. Do the nurses work for free? The orderlies? Do they work for just enough to get by or maybe enough to buy a TV, a new car, cell phones.
    In the US doctors and nurses will be attracted to working in a rural setting because:
    A. some people like to work in smaller towns.
    B. they will get compensated adequately.
    C. it should be cheaper to live and work in small towns when your costs can be lower ie real estate
    This is the market at work. hen the left tries to jimmy the system, things get out of whack.
    enough

  23. The underlying point of the ad is absolutely bang on. Calvert and Co are the ones “warning” us that the health system isn’t safe under a different administration.
    Safe from what? More closed ER’s? More people waiting 6 months to see a specialist? More cancelled heart surgeries? More Baby Paige’s?
    They better damned well be prepared to defend their record before having the gall to suggest it shouldn’t be changed. They insist they own the “legacy of Tommy Douglas”. Well, they better be prepared to wear every stitch of it.

  26. Phantom, where did you hear the Ontario PST hike rumour? I can’t seem to find anything about it, but certainly wouldn’t be surprised.

  28. Todd, didn’t Paul Martin “Fix health care for a generation”?
    Seems the NDP ain’t doin it.
    Time for change.

  29. Yup. We get to suffer 4 more years of abuse.
    I knew it was all over the moment Tory opened his mouth. In fact, Tory (in my mind) gets to share the blame for everything McShifty does.
    The people I really feel sorry for are the people in and around Caledonia who have been left to hang in a native anarchy zone where the police won’t save a non-native from being beaten half to death but will instantaneously arrest any non-native for planting a Canadian flag…
    Any deaths will be the fault of McShifty, the coward/politician OPP “chief” and the electorate.

  30. I live in a city in Alberta and Emergency at our hospital doesn’t even have a doctor present. Many people can’t even find a doctor here who will take on new patients, so people are forced to go elsewhere, and good luck with that. Most doctors like to see a patient for only one problem at a time – I’ll have to make about four appointments in a row I guess. The Health Care System is crap in Canada, and if the socialists have their way, it will never get better.

  31. Nursing stations and/or hospitals in rural areas have been closing for a long time now because of the shortage of doctors; it isn’t responsible to put a doctor in a clinic where he will be underworked – you need to get every ounce of work out of every doctor to try an address the health concerns of individuals in this nation. This country needs to keep the doctors and medical personnel it educates. All one has to do is look to what the U.S. is offering our Canadian educated doctors, nurses, technicians, etc. to know what Canada has to do to keep them from going south. You can’t pay people enough to be overworked – exhaustion is usually where people draw the line.

  32. Joanne,
    The reason that doctors will only see patients for one problem at a time is that is how the government set the system up and how they pay the doctors.
    Here in Ontario, the rate that doctors are paid has not been increased since 1984. A doctor is paid $17 or $19 to see a patient (I can’t remember which it is.) Either way, the only way a doctor can make a living is to churn patients. That’s why the waiting room is always full, a single doctor will have 4 or 5 examining rooms all full and the nurse will evaluate the patient in advance. Then the doctor (who has to pay all staffing and overhead on that fee) will stroll in, confirm diagnosis, write script or referral as necessary and move on to the next room while the last one is re-filled from the people waiting.
    If you have more than one problem, the doctor spends more time but doesn’t get paid for it. Anything beyond the quick, one-issue visit is not paid for. Would you work for free?
    Welcome, comrade, to the efficiencies of Soviet Russia! This is why socialism doesn’t work. It eliminates all ingenuity. You can’t find a better way to operate as you have to deal with the system as is or you don’t get paid.

  33. Sigh… Todd is right. As much as it pains me to say it, it’s true. What, exactly, is the Sask Party going to do that will reverse the trend of closing rural hospitals? Right now, nearly half of the budget is spent maintaining health care.
    They’ve already taken dreaded “two tier health care” off the table. The 275 million in recruitment doesn’t have anything to do with various support positions necessary to run a rural hospital or 20. Triple the number, and you might begin to get close to the actual cost.
    Strategically unsound. The implication of the ad is that the problem will be fixed, now they’ll have to answer “how”.

  34. People have an amazing ability to stay wilfully blind until the consequences of inaction become so great as to be inescapable.
    Not until huge numbers of people are dying because of the system will we change.
    The population is aging. The system as it stands will not hold up to the demand as it can’t even now. The system will collapse. That day is not far off…

  35. Todd:
    I don’t know what (if anything) The SaskParty would do differently. And I think that it is only right and fair to ask that of them. But, I do want to address something else you said in your post at 1:01pm…
    if I’m a doctor and I can make gobs of money, I’m going to move to the city. It would have to be a huge amount of extra cash to make me want to live in the rural areas.
    You are making a bad assumption here. While it is true that most doctors (humans) do indeed gravitate to urban areas, I’ll that you’ll find that not all doctors (humans) are the same in that regard.
    I lived in Northern British Columbia (town with a population of about 12,000) for most of my teenage years. Locally, we had an oversupply of dentists (private care). In fact, we had one dentist who had moved to this place from the US. He had some sort of special certification to do a form of dental surgery that only 6 other dentists in North America had at that time. Of course, he was one of the richest people in the area. People came from all over (including Vancouver) to see him for special work.
    Why was he (and all of his competitor dentists) there? Because he liked the small-town lifestyle and the enshurance companies that provided dental benefits for most of the local (mill) workers was willing to pay his rates. But, it was all privately handled. Now, while I will admit that most dentists work in urban areas (largely because of the higher demand), there will always be a niche for a few dentists (and doctors) to choose small towns and villages to serve a small clientele.
    Have you ever heard of a town with dentist shortages? Come to think of it, have you ever heard of doctor shortages in small-town America?
    The bottom line is that the free market almost always finds a way. And when it experiences problems, they are still small compared to those disasters created by government meddlers trying to create a command-economy.

  36. bryceman,
    Funny you should mention dentists…
    In the UK, dentistry falls under the public health system. Not surprisingly, there are shortages.
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,2191204,00.html
    Here, we have dentists in the private system and doctors in the public. We have a shortage of doctors but not dentists. In the UK, both are public and there is a shortage of both.
    But don’t think that the leftards will draw any conclusions from this.

  37. “Joanne,
    The reason that doctors will only see patients for one problem at a time is that is how the government set the system up and how they pay the doctors.” by Warwick
    I did realize this Warwick; I agree they like to see a patient for one problem at a time for the very reasons you listed, and I do not blame them. This fee doctors are allowed to charge certainly is not patient-friendly, but then again, who ever said socialism was user-friendly.

  38. Bryceman, good point. I’m not knocking small towns and I grew up in one. But I just choose to live in a ‘big’ city because I like the amenities there are and things there are to do. There are people that do prefer small towns and my parents live in a small town.
    But the SaskParty is not promising private healthcare in any form. So I’m just bringing up the point that I haven’t heard what they are planning to do to change that situation. They are saying the NDP botched up healthcare in the province and have closed hospitals, etc. I want to know what their plans are to change this. Just saying the NDP has screwed this up shouldn’t be enough to get someone’s vote. You should have to say what you are going to do differently. Do they want to bring in private clinics and diagnostics? Do they want to implement pay for service doctors? Just say what you’re going to do.
    The campaign is young so I guess I’ll just wait and see. I’m not so sure any party is going to really tell us how they are going to ‘make things better’.

  39. In an article on the CBC website there is an article about surgical wait times in Canada being at an all time high and the kicker is that in the Socialist utopia of Saskatchewan we have the dubious distinction of having the longest wait times in Canada.
    “Waiting times best in Ontario
    Ontario recorded the shortest waiting time overall (the wait between visiting a general practitioner and receiving treatment) at 15.0 weeks, followed by British Columbia (19.0 weeks) and Quebec (19.4 weeks). Saskatchewan (27.2 weeks), New Brunswick (25.2 weeks) and Nova Scotia (24.8 weeks) recorded the longest waits in Canada.”

  40. Todd,
    But the SaskParty is not promising private healthcare in any form. So I’m just bringing up the point that I haven’t heard what they are planning to do to change that situation.
    Yes. And you are right to do so. I too would be suspicious that the SaskParty will likely do very little differently. Somehow, we just have to hope that there is indeed a hidden agenda this time. In all probability, not much will change. The mass hysteria/terror that fills the hearts of the majority of Canadians when they hear the words “private” or “for-profit” in the same sentence as “healthcare” will probably send any SaskParty ideas of reform into the wastebasket. I just wish more people would wake up and realize that “private” is not a dirty word and that everyone (even liberals) do things best when it’s “for profit.”
    In any case, my post was only addressing that single bit from your post that I quoted. I have no issue with your other (main) point. It is a valid question and people should look to have it answered.

  42. So there is a shortage of doctors, ever wonder why? Ever wonder why there aren’t more people going to medical school? Did you know that enrollment to med school is capped? There are also a lot of doctors that are tired of sub-par wages and taking the bullet for socialism and Tommy. Ever wonder why some doctors from foreign lands are driving cabs? If an ad points out that rural hospitals are closing, why is it assumed (by Todd, et al)that thay will all be reopened by a new government? The system needs to re-invent itself and adapt to give the service that the people deserve. There is no one answer fits all either.

  43. I don’t assume they will be reopened. Actually I assume they won’t. I’m just saying that the SaskParty hasn’t said so far that they will do *anything* different. If they criticize delivery of health to rural areas, then they really should tell us how they will improve it.

  44. Our Dr’s and Alberta’s get the same wages so don’t feel too sorry for the poor Dr’s. Dr’s for the most part are against medicare. Go bullshit each other all you want. Dr’s have their own secret agenda. Dr’s don’t want to practice in rural Sask. Face it. No gov’t can change that. The Sask party will not find any more nurses. No other province can so how will we? Where will they come from?

  45. Todd and other neo-socialist;
    The promise of universal health care is just that, it is to be the same for everyone, regardless of how much money you have or where you live. Now, if you are saying that it is not practical to provide the same level of care to every community, they you are saying that the Tommy Douglas/CCF/NDP system of health care doesn’t work, and that I will agree with.
    The rational thinkers in this country have long believed that we should look at some of the best health care systems in the world, like France’s public/private blended system.

  46. Todd and other neo-socialist;
    The promise of universal health care is just that, it is to be the same for everyone, regardless of how much money you have or where you live. Now, if you are saying that it is not practical to provide the same level of care to every community, they you are saying that the Tommy Douglas/CCF/NDP system of health care doesn’t work, and that I will agree with.
    The rational thinkers in this country have long believed that we should look at some of the best health care systems in the world, like France’s public/private blended system.

  48. if HillnBilly Clinton get back in , the doctors that left will be putting in that old GuessWho CD-Running Back to Saskatoon. although it should take a few years to make their system as bad as ours.

  50. Where did I say private healthcare was bad? I just said that the SaskParty isn’t promising that so HOW ARE THEY GOING TO MAKE THINGS BETTER? Hell, I’m not sure I’m going to vote NDP this election myself. I’m just asking a valid question. If the SaskParty is criticizing the NDP’s healthcare record, then they had damn well better show their plan.
    Most of you are conservatives, or using Trent’s phrase, ‘neo-cons’. Are you happy with the SaskParty not promising private healthcare? Or do you just not care what they are going to do? I think I’d want to know what I was voting for.

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