SHR OFFERS MORE OF SAME
Faced with the grim task of having to erase a whopping deficit of nearly $36 million recorded last fiscal year and orders from the province to find administrative savings of $1.9 million to redirect toward front-line services in long-term care facilities, the Saskatoon Health Region appears at a loss for ideas, except to regurgitate measures that have been tried over the years with negligible gains.
Consider some of what the health region proposed Wednesday as its solution to its $38 million conundrum of balancing its budget at a time of “volume and demographic pressures”: reducing overtime costs; optimizing paid hours; a two-month external hiring freeze and a voluntary separation program for out-of-scope staff; hiking parking fees for hospital visitors and staff; redesigning ambulatory care; optimizing lease costs and shuttle services, implementing more effective cleaning products and renegotiating contracts for services and supplies.
Then there’s the promise to implement appropriate testing guidelines and promote appropriate use of supplies.
People can be forgiven if they think they have heard much of this before, because they have. Each time the health region faces a financial crunch, this is pretty much the list that gets trotted out.
Even though the region is reporting that overtime hours have decreased by 18.5 per cent so far this year, what’s not as clear is whether there’s commensurate savings in a system where seniority rules the allocation of overtime hours. Without changes agreed on at the negotiating table, containing these costs will be difficult, especially in the face of a hiring freeze that will require current staff to pick up the slack, and sick leave use seemingly on the rise (up 3.9 per cent for the first quarter).
Given the budgetary challenges that have confronted the health region for the past five years or more, it’s difficult to imagine that administrators with a modicum of competence wouldn’t have adopted some or all of these measures already. What did the vaunted lean program deliver if testing guidelines are still inappropriate, supply use remains inefficient, and the ambulatory care service model remains on the limp?
While the region’s president and CEO Dan Florizone says the cost cutting measures are expected to result in savings of more than $34 million once they are implemented, what’s less clear is the time frame involved. For instance, what will be the cost of “voluntarily” parting ways with management-rank employees to find $1.9 million in savings to put toward long-term care, presumably during the current fiscal year?
In an endeavour driven primarily by labour costs, Mr. Florizone will be hard-pressed to balance SHR’s budget with minimal layoffs and without affecting patient care. Colour us skeptical about Wednesday’s plan.