The Kelsey Trail Health Region, which covers the Northeast, will be merged along with the 11 other health regions in the province into a single, province-wide health authority.
Greg Ottenbreit, the minister responsible for rural and remote health, told the Review the move to one health region isn’t necessarily about saving money, but improving services by breaking down boundaries seen in the current system.
“It isn’t about pulling back any kind of services,” he said. “This is about enhancing services, making sure it’s more responsive to the people of the province, that they can access the type of healthcare that they want.”
The reorganization, the minister said, could actually improve services in rural areas. It could do so by minimizing the cost of administration and redirecting the savings to front-line health workers. Emergency Medical Services could also improve as instead of 12 different regions co-ordinating their ambulances in different ways, there would be one, making the system more cohesive.
The government is concerned about preserving rural voice, said Ottenbreit, and it will do so by including community groups that can have some input as well as four different service delivery areas based on patient travel patterns. Ottenbreit said the province doesn’t know at this point what those areas will look like.
“We don’t have any preconceived notions at this point. We have to get our transition team in place to start working through that process.”
Loss of KTHR headquarters in Tisdale
The Kelsey Trail Health Region is headquartered in Tisdale.
Shane Merriman, Kelsey Trail’s CEO, said the health region found out about the results of a panel appointed to examine health regions and their recommendations, accepted in whole by the provincial government, at the same time as the public did, Jan. 4. He said he doesn’t know what will happen with the health region’s headquarters or the people that are employed in it.
“We don’t know that level of detail yet, in terms of headquarters here for the Kelsey Trail Health Region regional office,” he said. “Those things have yet to be worked out.”
Ottenbreit said that it’s too early to tell what will happen with the administration and governance structure of health in the province except there will be one health region with one board of directors and one set of administrators.
“When it comes to the local level, there will definitely be some administrative changes locally but you still need managers and service providers in the local areas,” he said.
The minister said there will be job losses because of the change, but most of them will be administrative and back office jobs that can be amalgamated. With that said, he said he did understand there were concerns about losing those types of jobs in Tisdale.
“We’re very sensitive to that. I know [Health] Minister [Jim] Reiter’s very sensitive to that as well – both of us are from rural areas. But realizing if we are going to change the system, there are going to be some impacts.”
Mayors react
Al Jellicoe, the mayor of Tisdale, said he was concerned about possible job losses as a result of the consolidation. He said his town will lobby the provincial government to minimize job losses.
“We’re going to try to set up a meeting with the ministers in Regina, but that’s probably four to six weeks away,” he said.
Rick Lang, the mayor of Melfort, was more positive.
“I’m not sure if we have any concerns yet,” he said. “We’ll have to keep our ears open and see what’s being proposed.”
Lang said even if the administration is being consolidated, the fact remains that Saskatchewan is a large province with a spread-out population, meaning that services will have to stay local and places like his city would be a major health centre.
The mayor of Melfort said he still expects the province to fulfill its promise of locating a CT scanner at the Melfort hospital and for the new Wellness Centre to be built.
“That doesn’t change the promises that have been made, it doesn’t change the importance of the Melfort hospital to the area, it’s doesn’t change the idea we’re working towards building the clinic. As far as we’re concerned, that’s all going to happen.”
Barry Elliott, Nipawin’s administrator, said his town’s council and culture and health standing committee hadn’t met, so it was premature to comment at this point.
Transition could be finished by fall
There’s no hard timeline for when the health regions will be merged, though the province is anticipating it will be done by the fall. Ottenbreit said the province wasn’t going to rush the process, avoiding problems seen when Alberta transitioned into a system with one province-wide health authority.
“We’re going to make sure it’s well thought out and go through the process efficiently, effectively, with the least impact to not only our current administration employees but – for sure – the least amount of impact – we’re hoping unnoticeable impact – to the citizens of the province that need the healthcare services.”
As for Merriman, he said he was unsure of how his role will play out during the transition.
“I’ll certainly support the Ministry of Health and work together to ensure a smooth transition for the patients and employees that we serve,” he said. “I’ll be serving in my role as the CEO of the health region until such time as further decisions are made with regards to the movement to the one provincial health authority.”
For Merriman, there was one important bottom line.
“At the end of the day, we’re here to provide healthcare services and we want to provide high quality patient care to those that we serve and we will continue to do that.”
