Right in the centre - Simple reasoning
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- Published on Friday, April 8, 2016
By Ken Waddell
Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press
On Monday, the Saskatchewan Party, led by Premier Brad Wall, won 51 out of 61 seats to remain as the government in Saskatchewan. I personally think that’s a good thing and I am hoping that the PC Manitoba Party wins the Manitoba election on April 19.
My reasoning is simple.
Saskatchewan has done well under Wall’s government and Manitoba, I think, will do better under Brian Pallister.
Governments are meant to govern, to provide an environment for individuals and businesses to prosper. Governments should not be put in place to grow governments. While not exclusively an NDP trait, growing government is seen as a way to grow the economy. It’s actually a way to stifle the economy.
Health care takes up 40 per cent of our government funding. Health care is very good in Canada, but it is far from efficient and far from excellent. The education system is the oppressed cousin of health care. After that comes our social welfare system. After that comes a list other departments which are pretty much non-existent in Manitoba. A prime example is that we used to have a Department of Agriculture.
Health care should be a growing industry, but it should not be exclusively a government industry. In the days of old, health care facilities were provided by the Catholic nuns, by other religious groups, by caring organizations, by local community organizations. Somewhere along the way, we got off track and largely destroyed local or individual initiatives.
The province, the government, should never have gotten into the building of hospitals and care homes. The government can set standards, but to own, operate, control and stifle the whole health care system is just plain wrong. At Neepawa, we have a fine care home. Nobody would want to be without it. However, let’s look at the pattern, a pattern that has been repeated in many towns. The old care home was locally owned and funded. When a new home was announced, it was estimated to be $16 million. The NDP government put on the brakes and delayed the construction for eight years or so. Costs went up to $30 million due to inflation and some unnecessary costs. The local contribution rose from $1.6 million to $2.8 million and the number of beds dropped from 120 to 100. Neepawa and area got cheated by the government.
The government cheating continues. The Country Meadows Care Home was built to have laundry and kitchen capacity to handle a new hospital on the same site. Government paid 90 per cent and the locals paid 10 per cent. That investment is in the facility, waiting to be utilized.
In the meantime, the regional hospital concept, which is great concept, was dreamed up and a location was tentatively chosen at Franklin, half way between Neepawa and Minnedosa. Not a bad idea, assuming that both Minnedosa and Neepawa have a sufficient complement of doctors to assemble at Franklin to serve a regional hospital. I initially supported the idea. I no longer do and here’s why.
Assuming that a hospital were to be built at Franklin, by the time the RHA and the government slice and dice the project, it would only have marginally, if any, more beds than Neepawa. With the government’s record at Country Meadows, don’t be surprised about reduced bed numbers. Building a hospital at Franklin means that Minnedosa doesn’t have a hospital in the middle of its population centre and neither does Neepawa. Remember how much better it would be for all the small towns to close their schools and travel to a bigger school. That worked out really well for a lot of towns didn’t it? The Franklin site will take $5 million, and counting, more for infrastructure costs for water, sewer, hydro, gas and who knows what else.
The communities of Neepawa and Minnedosa have to decide if they want a vaguely defined regional hospital located between the two towns or if they want a strong community hospital in each town. People say that staff can drive to Franklin. Of course they can! That we know, as employees already drive all over the place to take shifts at the hospital, the schools or wherever their job is located. We get that. Some doctors live many miles from their office. Driving isn’t the issue. Yes, of course people could drive to Franklin to work, no question. But why would we erode the viability of both towns for a dream that has questionable merit over two good local community hospitals.
I am hopeful that sanity and local control will return to all levels of government after April 19. We might even have a Department of Agriculture again.
