Louise Simard is the new CEO for SAHO |
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Nipawin - March 14, 2000 - by: Mario deSantis | ||
either rural or urban | The Health Care system is breaking down, and I can | |
tsee in he 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. | ||
closure of hospitals in rural Saskatchewan | 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). | ||
more autocratic | 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. | ||
centralized public 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 http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign/authors/desantis.html | ||
Simard taking over SAHO, CBC Saskatchewan http://sask.cbc.ca/ Web Posted | Mar 13 2000 2:18 PM | ||
A Saskatchewan Vision for Health, The Honourable Louise Simard, Minister of Health, August 1992, Saskatchewan Health | ||
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 | ||
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 | ||
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 |