Saskatchewan health plans/budgets:an ever changing methodology |
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Nipawin - May 17, 2000 - By: Mario deSantis | |
needs-based funding allocation |
Sometime ago I wrote that Saskatchewan Health was out of reality when it removed the universal |
accounting processes of budgeting/funding and implemented the so-called "needs-based funding | |
allocation(1)." District boards and CEOs could not understand this new way of funding, and | |
Saskatchewan Health made this allocation of funding more confusing when first they stated that | |
the allocation of funding was based on 70% of the districts' needs(2) and later when they kept | |
changing this percentage and methods(3). | |
cannot provide health plans |
The end result of this ever discretional way to fund health districts is that we have districts which |
are puppets of the government(4), we have districts which are operating in a deficit position(5), we | |
have districts which don't report to the Health Minister the monthly accounting comparisons | |
between actual and budgeted expenses(6), we have districts which are unable to identify the | |
sources of financial difficulties and therefore we have districts which cannot provide health | |
plans by leveraging and prioritizing their health services. | |
different |
Our health care politicians and leaders have downgraded the universal budgetary accounting |
processes and have at the same time overemphasized the use of health indicators(7). In addition, | |
we continue to experience different timing for the approval of health plans; last year, the districts' | |
budgets were globally approved one year later(8), and today these same budgets are going to be | |
globally approved as soon as possible within a new provincial context(9). | |
universal accounting |
We require health districts to go back to their universal accounting budgetary processes and be |
away from their present secretive, confusing, inconsistent and ever changing global budgetary | |
methodologies. | |
---------------Endnotes: | |
Quote by Donella Meadows "challenging a paradigm is not a part-time job. It is not sufficient to make your point once and then blame the world for not getting it. The world has a vested interest in, a commitment to, not getting it. The point has to be made patiently and repeatedly, day after day after day" ftp://sysdyn.mit.edu/ftp/sdep/Roadmaps/RM1/D-4143-1.pdf http://iisd1.iisd.ca/pcdf/meadows/default.htm | |
General reference: Articles by Mario deSantis published by Ensign http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign/authors/desantis.html | |
Immediate Need of New Budgeting Processes for Saskatchewan Health and District Health Boards, by Mario deSantis, March 9, 1995 http://www3.sk.sympatico.ca/desam/paper-NeedBudgProc-mar09-95.htm | |
Presentation of the healthcare system architecture to vendors and software developers. Presentation sponsored by SAHO, Sask Health, and Economic Development. Regina, January 12, 1995. A report by Mario deSantis http://www3.sk.sympatico.ca/desam/paper-presentArch-Jan12-95.htm | |
Hospital closure permanent, Carrot River 'betrayed', by Ernest Unrau, The Nipawin Journal, March 8, 2000. Margaret Anderson, Chair of North-East Health District, has stated "It has taken the board four years to make this decision... If your community can change the funding process in Regina, I wish you well -- we have tried and been told there is no more money." | |
The two primary needs of health reform: independence of the districts & the booting out of hoodlums, by Mario deSantis, April 5, 2000 | |
The Big Question for Saskatchewan Health Care: Underfunding or Mismanagement? By Mario deSantis, March 5, 2000 | |
The reporting of monthly comparisons between budgeted and actual expenses has been a recurrent concern expressed by Wayne Strelioff, Provincial Auditor of Saskatchewan | |
Minister of Health Pat Atkinson and Health Indicators: "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics" By Mario deSantis, March 24, 2000 | |
Government News Release, Health - 86, March 3, 2000 http://www.gov.sk.ca/newsrel/2000/03/ | |
Atkinson's won't rule out more hospital closures, by Murray Mandryk, The StarPhoenix, May 13, 2000, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan |