Dear Editor
Brad Wall has shown his true priorities. He is obsessed with big oil and influenced by the climate-change-denying Koch brothers who own 45 per cent of the leasehold exploration rights in Saskatchewan. Wall has facilitated at the American Legislative Exchange Council (sponsored by the Koch brothers), a group that is exclusively devoted to unregulated capitalism and disbanding government services, including publicly-funded healthcare.
When comparing public funding for hospitals as a percent of GDP in 2014, Saskatchewan ranked dead last at 2.37 per cent (The National Health Expenditures Database 2014.) Obviously Wall has not been spending our oil boom money on improving hospital services. Instead, massive amounts of health care dollars are being funneled into highly paid administrators, LEAN staff and consultants. Recent funding cuts to health regions have resulted in cancelled surgeries and increased wait times.
According to information from the Ministry of Health, there are approximately 3,000 acute care beds staffed and in operation as of March 31, 2015. That is approximately 2.65 beds per thousand. When the Sask. Party was first elected there were 3.4 beds per thousand. This is documented on the Ontario Health Coalition website comparing provinces.
All three health regions that serve my area have less beds than the current provincial average and less beds now than when the Sask. Party was first elected. The 2014-15 annual report for Prince Albert Parkland Health Region has 150 staffed beds or approximately 1.84 per thousand. Prairie North Health Region has 181 staffed beds or 1.75 per thousand. Saskatoon Health Region has 826 beds, or 2.41 per thousand. The recent drop in Saskatchewan鈥檚 population could improve these stats, provided there is no further reduction in the bed count.
Health care isn鈥檛 just about numbers or beds. It鈥檚 also about timely access to services, our individual experience and affordable ambulance service. We need to feel safe and cared for in our hospitals and nursing homes. We need to provide our health care staff with the tools and resources to do their jobs.
Maybe the bad old days are yet to come, a repeat of the Devine 1980s. The days of selling off Crown assets like the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan. Yes, we actually did own PCS once upon a time. Think of the lost revenue. In 2007 Brad Wall promised, 鈥淣ot to privatize or wind down any of the province鈥檚 Crown corporations or their subsidiaries.鈥� (Saskatoon StarPhoenixNov. 8, 2007). A promise broken when Information Services Corporation was partially sold in 2012 and bits and pieces of others like SaskTel and SaskEnergy have been quietly sold off. After Wall finishes selling publicly-owned lease land, there is not much left to sell off except the Crown corporations. How else will Wall keep his 2007 promise to balance the budget every year? Oh right, he鈥檚 already broken that promise several times over.
Evelyn Johnson
Spiritwood
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306 883-2702
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