Right in the centre - Waiting without working is not an option
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- Published on Thursday, May 14, 2015
By Ken Waddell
The Neepawa Banner
I have visited the Brandon Regional Health Centre on several occasions this past eight months. The first of many visits was to see a friend who has thankfully recovered. The most recent visit was this past week to visit the new great grandson.
There’s a lot of good things to be said about the Brandon facility. Never had a bad experience there as a visitor and the level of health care seems to be very good.
From a visitor’s point of view, it’s painfully obvious that there are a huge number of administrators compared to front line staff. How do I know that? Well, the parking lot is jammed to the edges Mondays to Fridays in the day time. In the evenings, or on the weekends, you can park pretty close to the door.
Hospitals, like many other institutions, are run by administrators and it appears we have way more than are necessary. Now before anyone gets too upset, these jobs are all good in their own right but are they necessary? Let me illustrate. In a biography of Winkler’s famous Dr. Cornelius Wiebe, it’s pointed out that the hospital in that fair city took a turn for the worse when the administration was handed over to, well, administrators. The book argues that a hospital should be run by someone who has a long front line career, a doctor, a nurse or someone with front line training and experience. It’s not unlike what I have been complaining about in the newspaper business. A newspaper needs to be run by a publisher with some admin training.
Case in point is the extensive renovations that have and still are being made at Brandon Regional Health Centre. They make the place prettier but much of the huge investment of money there hasn’t added rooms, made rooms larger or enhanced patient care. There are lots of four person wards in BRH that are extremely awkward to work in. When you have four very sick people in one room, it makes even the visitors want to curl up and die. In a nutshell, BRH is extremely crowded and cramped.
That observation leads to a discussion of what should happen with the Minnedosa-Neepawa proposed regional hospital. Neepawa Mayor Adrian de Groot is on the right track. He’s asking lots of questions and he’s a “process” guy. He wants to know the process to decide where, when and how to build a new regional hospital. Should it even be a regional hospital or should the $100 million (if the government ever finds the money) be spent on a hospital at Neepawa and an upgrade at Minnedosa. A lot of planning needs to be done so we don’t end up with the crammed in, bunched up situation we have at Brandon.
Neepawa and Minnedosa have a chance to guide their future, to achieve what the communities need and want. Unfortunately, more than 90 per cent of the money will come from the province and they will call the shots as to what is built, where it’s built and when, if ever, it’s built. In the intervening years, and it will be years, the communities of Neepawa and Minnedosa need to steadily upgrade their medical clinics. Test labs and a larger range of services at the clinics need be added now, not 10 years from now. Clinics need to be expanded. Doctors need to be recruited. The local communities have to get fully involved in improving what we have and expanding what we need.
There’s two advantages. One is the communities will get what they want and need. Second, it will actually get done. The province doesn’t have any money without going into more debt. The pattern is painfully obvious, the communities that have gotten off their ass and made recruitment and clinics happen are progressing. The communities that haven’t are crying to the government for money and facilities.
It’s becoming painfully clear that Neepawa and Minnedosa may want a new facility, but it may never come. If it comes it will be five to 10 years away. Both communities, the people, the doctors, the development corporations (like NADCO), have to dig even deeper and expand what we have now. It will be a long wait but waiting without working is not an option.
I believe Neepawa needs to get behind Mayor de Groot and NADCO and make a bunch of things happen. The provincial saviours may or may not come riding over the horizon but whether they do or not, sitting and waiting isn’t an option.
We have all waited too long, sitting in the coffee shops, hoping the coffee doesn’t run out before we take our place in the cemetery plot. If we wait for governments, we may well wait until the coffee pot runs dry and there’s no one left to refill it.
