Big Brains Fyke and Rourke Have Spoken |
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Nipawin - December 31, 2000 - by: Mario deSantis | |
last six |
Today we have the one-man commissioner of medicare, Ken Fyke, who after spending more |
and more and more money for further researches in health care, has come up with one root | |
problem of our health care system. He says, forty percent or more of the costs of the health | |
system is spent in treating patients in the last six months of their lives and that is a | |
tremendously complex issue. Fyke doesn't have an answer for this tremendous problem but | |
he has the big question "How does society decide?" We want to help Mr. Fyke and we have | |
the suggestion that he finds the answer by mailing another 400,000 questionnaires to | |
Saskatchewan families(1). | |
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more |
Mr. Fyke has a long history of expertise in health care, and I believe he had some role along |
with the other expert Brian Rourke, fixed chair of the Saskatchewan Association of Health | |
Organizations (SAHO), in the digging of the hole in the ground for the closure of the Plains | |
Health Centre in Regina(2). Rourke and Fyke have a superior expertise in health care, however | |
while Rourke has stated that "there's a need for more money in the system," Fyke disagrees | |
and says that more money is not the answer. | |
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fairness |
Hypocritical Rourke and Fyke, along with any level of governments, have both supported the |
blowing out of acute health care beds in order to downsize the medical and nursing expenses(3). | |
And today, Rourke says: | |
"the total per-capita spending on acute-care services is lower in Saskatchewan |
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than any other province." And Fyke says "A decade ago patients may have |
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spent a couple of weeks in hospital after surgery and received their prescribed |
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drugs at no charge. Now they are often discharged after twnty-four hours and |
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are required to pay for their own drugs... In the interest of fairness and equity |
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that can't continue." |
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teamwork |
Doctors have been downsized and excluded from participating in health reform and Fyke may |
have another surprise for doctors. He says | |
"physicians have worked as private practitioners, and been solely responsible |
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for their decisions. In a new teamwork model, some may find it difficult to |
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change and share the responsibility with nurses and other professionals." |
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Roy |
Fyke has also stated that there is a need for a national inquiry, and he would be delighted if |
another commission follows in his wake. There is the fervent speculation that Roy Romanow | |
may head this commission. So after the Saskatchewan Way, Mr. Romanow could be building | |
another vision, the Canadian Way, and follows Mr. Fyke's approach to mail out questionnaires, | |
this time not 400,000 but millions of questionnaires. | |
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fundamental shift |
I agree with Mr. Fyke's assessment that the health care system needs fundamental shift |
in thinking, and I suggest that this fundamental shift of thinking would begin with his | |
own big brain. | |
------------References/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 The Global Citizen, http://www.tidepool.org/gc/ | |
List of relevant social articles http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign | |
Lack of vision, unstable funds hurting health care: SAHO, by Barb Pacholik, December 5, 2000, The StarPhoenix, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan | |
More money not answer: Fyke. Says health-care system needs fundamental shift in thinking, by Mark Kennedy, December 28, 2000, The StarPhoenix, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan | |
Fyke's Medicare Survey and the Psychology of Influencing People, by Mario deSantis, October 27, 2000 | |
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The closure of the Plains Health Centre: The $50 million overrun and the gimmick of saving money in health care, by Mario deSantis, December 19, 1999 | |
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Minister of Health Pat Atkinson:"Wellness Model" is outside the Canada Health Act, by Mario deSantis, March 7, 2000 | |
biography of Ken Fyke |