Editorial

Slicing and dicing our health care

If it’ not broke, don’t fix it.
Words of wisdom the Aspen Health Authority might have heeded when it was surveying Slave Lake’s physiotherapist situation in recent months. Instead, the RHA decided to upset the apple cart, and offer one of the best physiotherapists in the region – if not the province – a contract that even Santa Claus himself would have rejected.
After he volunteered (‘volunteered’ is the operative word here) to come and see to the needs of injured and hurting athletes at Slave Lake’s Arctic Winter Games in 1994, Paulo Muniz was invited to return and set up shop in this community. Health care professionals were delighted when he agreed, because it didn’t take a rocket scientist to see what kind of professional they were dealing with.
Muniz and his wife fit handily into the community, and quickly became integral parts of the health care of the community – Paulo as physiotherapist and Danielle dentist.
Paulo ran solo for the first while, then agreed when the Keeweetinok Lakes Regional Health Authority invited him to move into the hospital to do his physiotherapy work. Officials wanted him to say ‘yes’ so badly, they provided new equipment and space incentives.
He waited five years for his first raise, and three years later he was hoping for a second when the province reduced the number of health regions. In doing so, it lumped this community into a new region that stretched from Jasper to the Saskatchewan border.
The new Aspen region became so huge apparently that it couldn’t afford to give Paulo a raise. In fact, officials asked him to take a 30 per cent cut in wages. And, ‘Oh by the way, your hospital privileges have been revoked, and ‘Oh, yes, we’d like you out of our hospital – the sooner the better.’
They also asked the physiotherapist if he’d be interested in coming to work for them – in a much reduced capacity and much lower pay, of course.
And with a final swipe with its cost-cutting sword, the Aspen authority hired Paulo’s former assistant – the woman he’d helped get a start in the community by voluntarily cutting his own number of hours.
There ought to be a law.
Everywhere there are waiting lists to see a physiotherapist. In some areas – like Westlock, we’re told, there’s a six-week waiting list. In other areas it’s as much as three months.
But in Slave Lake, thanks to Paulo’s dedication, there was no waiting list. Patients were seen and helped almost immediately. No matter how busy his day, Paulo always seemed to find ‘room for one more’.
In short, his practice was working – a virtual success story. And no waiting list.
So why then did the RHA feel the need to ‘fix’ that which wasn’t broken? Was it cost-cutting in what it believed was a fairly invisible location, somewhere that the screams wouldn’t be heard? Or was it a directive from Minister Gary Mar?
Or is it, as we suspect, just an easy place to cut costs?
Weeks ago one doctor quietly whispered his fears that services at Slave Lake’s health complex will be another victim of the province’s minimization scheme. We agreed, hoping it wasn’t so.
Now we realize that he was right, and we have to wonder how far this restructuring will be allowed to proceed before someone notices?
And even if they do, we wonder if knowing will do any good? More importantly, how do we stop this freight train called cost-saving?
Christmas? Bah humbug!