Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Crisis by Design

To bring costs under control, superboard CEO Stephen Duckett introduced a new policy that limited hospital spending during the first three months of this fiscal year to the same amount spent the three months previous. That move forced the Royal Alexandra Hospital to postpone elective surgeries and limit overtime. Similar cost concerns are increasing wait times for cataract surgery in the Calgary area, since the health authority won't overspend its cataract budget.

On top of that, Duckett stopped blanket recruitment of nurses and limited new job postings in an effort to avoid layoffs of current staff.

The government, in turn, stopped covering a portion of chiropractic care and sex-change surgeries to save approximately $54 million, some which will be funnelled to boost home care for seniors.

That move and other changes don't point toward a privatization agenda, Liepert has said, but are necessary because of costs pressures and the need to improve the public health system.

Parse that last paragraph and try to find any way it is anything but utter gibberish. I dare you.

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