Quote:
Originally Posted by mykalberta
What do you mean. What is a governemtn supposed to do to stop the balooning costs of the health care system. Do you see alot of doctors or nurses leaving Alberta because of its abhorrent conditions. No because they have a very sweet deal up here. Heck, the gov cuts trans gender surger fro the budget and the Herlad has a front page story on it, thats how crazy the health care debate has got.
The more nurses you hire the bigger the union gets and the more powerful.
The Superboard is one step in getting rid of un needed hospitals in cities within 50km of Calgary/Red Deer/Edmonton etc and replacing them with ambulance/air ambulance service. Then those employees from those closed down locations can be moved to more efficient locations.
The next step is allowing private services to contract out for public services. Example you open a clinic that handles broken legs or whatever, you cannot accept patients off the street, only via registered alberta doctor referral - that way its not against the canada health act. You pay Nurses to work an 9-5 shift, that way you can lower the pay as you wont get stuck with the overtime game that is played out now.
|
Well firstly, while privatization is really a win/win situation for all involved (except senior RNs), its not what they're going to do, as they appear intent on the 90s route of position cutting. They don't have the balls for privatization, the brains to differentiate it from the US system, and they don't have the cash to support it (especially when they lose their Canada Health Act funding due to reason #2). What you suggest is a good idea for sure, but I don't see them having the aptitude to pull it off. All the "superboard" has done so far is increase administration costs.
Second, they have to sit down with the unions and deal with the seniority BS. Top end nurses making $45/hr shouldn't be able to snag all the holiday/weekend time that balloon their salary to upwards of $95/hr. Instead of having two younger RNs working at $40/hr each with OT, they have one old union pro working at $90/hr. Efficiency isn't cutting positions, its cutting costs. While the health boards are good at screwing new nurses around, ie: mixing 50hr work weeks with 35hr work weeks and calling it a 40hr average rotation to prevent OT pay, they are really lousy at making that work for the senior staff, and they are the primary money drain.
Do you know why Alberta has the highest paid medical staff in the country? I'm sure you do seeing as your mom is an LPN. In an attempt to "cut costs" in the 1990s, they cut a pile of positions, which scared a lot of health professionals into early retirement or to the waiting arms of another province/US state. In order to combat this, they had to authorize significant pay raises to lure them back. What they are risking is the exact same thing. Hiring freezes and position cuts mean more health professionals taking their chances elsewhere, and when we're in a serious bind, another pay hike/incentive plan will be needed to bring them back, hence another cost overrun.