Dennis Scott’s saga began in February of 2003 when his family doctor found antigens consistant with prostate cancer. He didn’t receive a biopsy until the next September.
CBC

A Saskatchewan family says waiting for health care has been devastating. Tracy Grube was at the legislature Monday morning to talk about her father’s battle with cancer.
She says her dad had to wait seven months for a biopsy to diagnose his prostate cancer. Once the test results came back, Grube says the cancer was found to have spread and was considered incurable.

That wasn’t the end of Dennis Scott’s ordeal. He requires surgery to ease his discomfort. Last week he was on a hospital gurney, prepared for the surgery, when he was told to get up and put his clothes on. There were no recovery beds. It was the third time the surgery has been cancelled.
Apparently, we have an council established to monitor these incidents.

“We don’t know if this is an isolated incident, or something that’s happening repeatedly,” Quality Council chair Dr. Ben Chan said upon hearing about the incident. The Health Quality Council was set up and began monitoring the performance of Saskatchewan’s health system last summer. Chan doesn’t know how common it is to wait seven months for a biopsy, but finding out is definitely a priority. “If we’re going to manage the system better, we really need to have good quality information about just how many people are in that type of a situation,” he said.

This is the so-called Health Quality Council chairman, and he doesn’t know “how common” this is? He’s lacking good quality information? What exactly does this man do for his paycheck?

Without that information Chan said that it is hard to tell where the system may be breaking down and how to fix it. “If somebody has an urgent problem, are they going to the doctor that has the shortest waiting list, or do we know which doctor has the shortest waiting list?” Chan won’t speculate on when the council may have answers, but says if it’s any consolation, Saskatchewan is probably further ahead in this work than many other parts of the country.

Well, no Dr. Chan, it isn’t any consolation. Where the hell were his doctors? Didn’t they read his medical records? The hospital JANITOR could tell you that 7 months for a cancer biopsy is too long to wait. Why do we need an entire beaurocracy on the tax payroll to tell us what we already know and more to the point –why the fuck haven’t the whole lot of you been fired?
More – A good post at Trudeaupia about the effect of socialized health care on doctors.

This year’s Kinsmen Telemiracle is over, with over 3.5 million raised by the province’s residents.
Since its inception 27 years ago, the 20 hour province-wide telethon continues to hold a Guiness World Record, for raising more money per capita than any other fund raising event of its type. The funds are used to help residents with special needs.

If you head out for a weekend getaway, and the traffic looks something like this

You might be in Saskatchewan.
….
If longing to see something green means driving two hours north

You might be in Saskatchewan.
…
If you pull up to your motel room, and half the vehicles in the parking spaces have tracks

You might be in Saskatchewan.

Today, the Saskatoon Health Region announced that they will be closing up shop the last few days of March. March is the end of their fiscal year, and they’re $7 million in debt. Cancelling the surgeries is expected to save an estimated $200,000. Well, not save, of course… defer.
Saskatoon Star Phoenix:

After waiting for four years for knee surgery, a Saskatoon woman has been told she’ll have to wait even longer because the Saskatoon Health Region (SHR) can’t afford to do the procedure this month.
“I’ve waited for four years without too much complaining. I’ve been really patient because I realize there were people who needed it worse than me. But it’s got to the point where I need it as bad as anybody right now,” said Joyce Ratke, who learned this week she won’t have both knees replaced as scheduled on March 30.

One of 60 people being affected by the cancellations, her case is considered “elective”.
The annual budget of SHR is over a half billion dollars. $200,000 is a drop in their annual budget. The surgery moratorium has nothing to do about cost overruns, and everything to do with putting pressure on the politicians, and making a splash in the media. This time, though, the local media seems to be “on to them” and the decision is backfiring on the SHR.
I have a friend who works in the higher echelons of Sask Health, and she sometimes phones to vent her frustrations at the bloated unionized wages and threats to pull services whenever they need leverage for contract demands.
I told her the provincial government’s solution to reset the mindset of these “essential employees” could be summed up in 4 words.
Reagan. Air Traffic Controllers.
I had to explain what that meant.