"There were a couple hundred of us at that meeting (they had booked a room for 30), and most of us were looking for "restored" access to "basic" health care services."

Exactly.

Truly, are there no Saskatchewan doctors with any balls! Are they all commie automatons?

Where is the lone doctor willing to openly declare services for a free market fee? Are they merely a bunch of pussies all scared of the big mean government commies and their legions of entrenched bureaucrats? What a bunch of cow-towed wimps.

If I were a doctor I would dare and defy the big bad government to come after me for doing exactly what doctors are supposed to do.

Remember MSI, Medical Services Incorporated? It was owned and run by Doctors. I also remember the Doctors screaming bloody blue murder when the Government forced them out of business and into Government Healthcare. Well, I guess we got what we deserved, a bunch of simple servants running something they know nothing about, never did and never will. Simple Servants, unions and a sub servant socialist mentality will never run anything properly. Their focus is me me me and what can I get for me, not for the greater good of all as they would have you believe.

As for the Doctors I think they are beginning to see not only their incomes and practices being dictated and totally controlled by these same Simple Servants but worse, their social standing in the community reduced to no more than that of their Simple Servant Masters.

It would have been a hell of a lot cheaper for those that couldn’t pay to be subsidized by the government. What we have today is a total mess that the Government can’t and won’t change because of union pressure and liberal scare tactics. Waiting times are, in my opinion, union induced, they scream, we are understaffed, we can’t cope with the volume, simply to increase membership and CONTROL.

There are two facts that everyone needs to know about the absurdity of the Tommy Douglas HealthCare Lie - because anyone in the right mind should be lobbying to have Douglas' name chiseled off of every building and burnt out of all history books in the province:

FIRSTLY:
Tommy Douglas wrote a thesis paper advocating the sterilization and even termination of disabled Saskatchewan Citizens; his target was primarily disabled women if you can imagine. This is notable since Tommy Douglas wasn't even born in Canada and even after arriving in Canada was raised completely outside of Saskatchewan.

SECONDLY:
Tommy Douglas, and for that matter nearly all of the CCF/NDP leadership fought AGAINST HealthCare in Saskatchewan for well over ten years. You can pick up a book that describes Saskatchewan Citizens' fight to have HealthCare implemented in Saskatchewan which includes actual letters from Douglas responding to Saskatchewan Citizen requests that amount to nothing more than Douglas saying "That sounds nice now piss off".

The book mentioned above is available in the lower floor gift shop in the Legislature of Saskatchewan.

So SDAP...if they fought against,while in power,why is the whole country saddled with it?
Man Kate. The NDP whores have come out it great style! ANY party,ANY,who puts new democrat in their name,well ask the Russians how well that worked out.

The NDP are anything but democratic. Douglas used to espouse on the steps of the Legislature his political principles and beliefs quite freely.

Justthinkin... the HealthCare argument/debate demonstrates decisively the lackluster status of political dialog on whether being saddled demonstrates an ability to ride or not.

You think our gov't controlled health care is bad now, just until the nurses start retiring in droves. Whenever you hear about beds being closed in a hospital, it has nothing to do with beds, and everything to do with nurses. Good luck emptying your parent's bedpans folks!

just wait....sorry

Don't particularly like the twelve hour shifts that some nurses work. I don't think they're as "sharp" near the end. Plus, I think a lot are pushed through the system. Some have probably not made the best career choice. Just an opinion from a guy who spent nearly two months in a Calgary hospital this year. Sorry if this seems a bit off topic.

Aw, c'mon - everyone knows the truth. Michael Moore has proved that all of Canada has access to every kind of medical services within 5 minutes, that everyone in Canada is ecstatic about the quality of their health care, and that all the citizens of Canada bow down towards Ottawa three times a day in homage to their leaders who have provided such a perfect system.



(I'll allow at least five minutes here for people to stop laughing, choking, throwing up, or otherwise reacting to "The Truth" as espoused by Those Who Know What's Best for Everyone™©®.)



Please, people - what's happening here (i.e. Arcolaura's comments) needs to be broadcast. There's much truth to be told - so LET IT BE KNOWN FAR AND WIDE!!!! Moore (the self-styled voice of the "common man", who doesn't grasp the concepts he espouses)  makes it sound like all of Canada is behind him - if that's untrue, make a big noise! Show how everyday people feel, and are being affected, by reality!!!

Yellow journalism at it's best.

Oh, isn't it funny what the bureaucrats have to tell us when they show up here? This time they told us that the population in our area is declining. And a murmur ran through the room as we looked at each other and wondered how it is that you can't buy a house here these days. Houses are snapped up before they are even listed for sale - and yet our population is declining?

Kigstonlad is right about the nursing shortage. The source of that is government mandated changes in nursing education, as somebody else posted here a while ago.

Nursing is a crappy job these days. Most people aren't willing to go through a 4 year education process more fitting for physician. Two years including practical, sure.

Then there's the regulations. Who is allowed to do what, and what level of education/certification is required. Completely out of control IMO.

Two years training is more than good enough for basic nursing on a hospital floor. It isn't rocket science.

Two years is MORE than good enough for a physiotherapist, I'll tell you that from personal experience. Canadian schools require four, BA or MA, makes no difference. Insanity.

Most people in medicine are -way- over trained for what they do all day.

More people are moving to Sask than leaving. That is a fact this year. If we keep harping about nothing is here but farming less people will migrate.

Have any of you on here actually been sick in the hospital? I have on at least 3 occasions and received great care. The nurses and the Dr's were very helpful. I been rushed to the ER 3 times and got looked at in less than 20 mins. I think you guys are sucking air out of your arses.

Well, I've had to drive my husband 100 km to get stitches because the hospital across the field from our house was closed for the night - how's that 4ua? And as for people moving into or out of Saskatchewan, I think it's the government that has to realize what's going on, and quit closing schools and hospitals where the population is actually increasing.

Most of the WHALES (white homosexual and Liberal Elites) you know old guys, balding bad breath and overweight, they will back the NDP and try and get GOD out of the schools and homosexulaity in.

With only 4 communist governments left, North Korea, Cuba, Venuzulea and Saskatchewan I think first Saskatchewan will wake up, then Cuba, then Venuzuela and thousands more will starve in North Korea.

Calvert is a loser.

The people of Sask can't keep subsidizing hospitals in Rural sask. I can assure you I pay 10 times per acre in taxes more in Regina than any farmer does. Hospitals in Rural sask are glorified care homes most of the time.

I've had couple of South African Dr's. They like our system. They make twice as much money as they can back home. I had a Dr Ekong operate on my back. He's from Africa and very good at what he does. We're too spoiled here and we listen to the right wing kooks that are trying to get rid of our health system. You will try and destroy Medicare and so will America. They hate Medicare. I for one am getting older and need healthcare.

I personally have no objection to the South African doctors; some have been very good.

But I seriously object to the idea that our loss of basic services is justified because it costs too much to provide them here. If "the people of Sask" are "subsidizing hospitals in Rural sask," the subsidy per capita of population in this area must have been declining for decades. Our population has been quite stable, but we have lost our operating room, obstetrics, and at times even emergency services. This summer the hospital had no in-patient services at all - no palliative care, no overnight stays for observation, nothing. Like I said, the doors were locked every night at 11 p.m. Emergency? Childbirth? Sorry - please proceed to Redvers, Kipling, Weyburn, or Estevan.

About ten days ago my husband suffered a back injury, and he received excellent care - but it included two hours bouncing along on a backboard in the ambulance (wishing he had refused the ambulance transfer and had a smoother ride in our car) so that he could be assessed in Regina. There he had numerous tests with the latest medical equipment, and I assume that those tests allowed the neurologist to be quite confident of his final assessment. But I suspect that the preliminary assessment made by the local doctor based on the initial X-rays taken here in Arcola was much the same, and a couple of decades ago, that would have been good enough.

In 1927 the people of this area got together and built a municipal hospital. Yes, there were people who could not afford to go for treatment. But at least there was a hospital; you could try to find the money; you could accept help from neighbours. But who can help you when you have an emergency in the middle of the night and the hospital is locked?

So you think it's too costly to provide hospital services to rural people? Why pick on rural people? Why not look around and identify all those sectors of the population where medical care is substantially more expensive, and start making cuts there? Say, let's just eliminate palliative care altogether - they say for the average person, medical care for the last 10 days of life costs more than for all the rest of their lifetime. What's that you say - rural living is a lifestyle choice? Well, fine then (although I wonder who would maintain the oil wells out here, if all us backward rural people were relocated to cities for proper and efficient care); let's look at all the other lifestyle choices that lead to increased medical costs. Smoking? Alcohol? A high-fat diet? Imagine the outcry if you started restricting access to basic services for anyone who made those choices. So why is it okay to restrict access for rural people?

I'm not asking for an MRI in Arcola. I just want the ER open 24/7, some beds for my elderly neighbours to spend their last days close to friends and family, and, oh, yes, it would be really nice if all the young couples in this area could stay here, instead of feeling that they must move to the city to be near a delivery room when their children are born.

You tories don't seem to understand it takes taxes to fund medicare Duh??? You can't cut funding and give the same service. Our city council here in Regina found that out. Medicare should be funded like it was envisioned to be. By the people for the people. I for one know I pay more income tax and property tax per capita than 90% of the farmers do. I have no right offs. I have a T4. It's hard enough making a living out there without have rich farm brats crying because they're towns are dying. Look in the mirror Rural Sask you're the reason this has happened. It's not my fault. Most of farm programs and hospitals are funded by workers like myself through taxes. Blame your kids they don't want to stay on the farm. They want to sell it and move on.

You are making false assumptions about me and my area. I'm not a tory (I often disagree with Kate, profoundly), I'm not a farmer, and I'm not trying to get more services while paying less taxes. Our area is economically strong, and contributing plenty to provincial coffers through the oil industry (both royalties and taxes paid by workers) as well as other rural occupations that are necessary to the overall functioning of this province, including your urban lifestyle. You might make yourself feel better about the health care situation by assuming that everyone outside city limits is a whining lazy dependent of cushy farm programs, but it simply is not so.

In my opinion (and Kate may very well disagree with me here) there is a crisis in health care because nobody is facing the tough decisions about how much "quality" - higher training, more advanced technologies, etc. - is enough, and how much is just too much to afford. Instead, to avoid those tough decisions, the system just keeps absorbing more and more costs to deliver higher and higher quality care, but only in the largest centers and in the more spectacular areas of medical intervention. The shortfall gets pushed out to the edges - the rural centres, the smaller facilities in urban centres, and I assume things like wellness education - where the cuts get made. But what is the effect on the overall health of the Saskatchewan population? There are benefits in some areas, such as advanced diagnostics and treatment for severe injuries and cancer and the like; but there are also reductions in access to the most basic, low-cost services: the services that give the best return for the health care dollar in terms of a healthier total population in the longer term. This problem is much more obvious to someone like me, looking at the system from its fraying edge, but it is quietly affecting everyone by adding to the problem of rising health care costs.

My point about the young people moving away was not a whine about a dying town (it's not dying, it's growing), but just an observation that there are plenty of young people who want to live here, who have jobs to do here, and yet they hesitate to stay because of the health care situation. Instead of throwing money at dubious programs to try to stimulate rural communities through new ventures, why won't this government restore some basic services and let a vigorous community keep going strong?

Maybe things will change in the future. There are a lot of palms waiting to be greased all over Sask. The fed Tories did not keep their promises and are not funding medicare the way it was intended. In Alberta you pay 400.00 yearly in healthcare premiums. How much money does that bring in? At the least 200,000,000.00 dollars. We might have to do the same thing. There is not enough money coming in to fund everything. The NDP don't want to go anymore in debt. What is your population in Arcola? Dr's won't work for nothing. They get paid per patient. That's why you can't keep Dr's. It's all dollars and cents.

The Feds purposely underfund healthcare so it will die a slow death.We're not the only province with a nurse and Dr shortage. Alberta is as bad and so are many other provinces. We've had every color and shape of gov't here in Sask but the difference is the Feds can spend 40 billion for defense and won't restore funding to medicare for 4 billion. So what gives. 400 million for the Sudan which we cannot afford. Who do you think pays for this? So what happens is funding is cut for services to us so President Harper can look good on tv. Or does he?

The SaskaTory party says it will hire 800 nurses in one. Where are they coming from? Alberta needs a about 2000 or so and they can't find them but we will. That's a nice long term goal but not too realistic. Every province is short on nurses.
That promise can't be kept and nurses know it. I know a few. It's a pipe dream.

That's why we love the NDP, ok4u. Their lies are so transparent you can always tell when they are selling you the Brooklyn bridge.

My question is, why do you like them lying to you?

There are over 500 people in Arcola alone, but the hospital serves a much larger population including nearby towns and rural areas. I couldn't find a figure for the total population served but I would guess 1500 to 2000, easily enough to justify one if not two doctors (the province has 156 doctors per 100,000 population). Lately the shortage is not doctors but nurses.

Again I think it comes back to the problem of constantly raising standards without checking the reality of what can be realistically provided. Nurses are being trained to far higher standards than they used to, which is fine, except when it means that the system simply can't deliver enough nurses trained to that standard - can't provide the training spots, can't attract the students, etc. If less-qualified nurses were allowed to work here, we would be better off, because our hospital would be open when it's needed.

A 2 year course for nurses would be good enough. Why the 4 year I don't know. Dr's like money. They can't make a good enough living in Arcola or they don't want to live in a small town. There are incentives to come to Sask but how much should we pay? The province and the nurses decided this so ask your nursing friends why? None of mine seem to know. Someone wanted degree nurses. So that's what we got.

You have to have an 85% grade average to get into nursing. That's high. Many nurses do fine with their 2 year course. Maybe it's the colleges money grabbing for students. I don't know why but I think it has to do with too many over educated people wanting everyone to have a degree. Every nurse with a degree gets paid a little more for the degree. I think the whole problem stems from the fact that schools are made for 10% of the students. So if you don't want to go to university sometimes you are left behind. I know you don't need a degree to be a nurse but that's the way it is across Canada for the most part. I've written MLA's asking why the degree program. I've never gotten an answer. But I agree with you for the most part Arcola.

Tories lie like sidewalks. They all lie. Our Prime Minister lies. Brad Wall lies. It's just which do trust? I've been around along time and when I hear Brad Wall talk I smell a Rat. I smelled the same Rat in 1982 (DevinE). Phantom why are you so blind?