By Sheri Monk

On the final day of the annual Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA) convention, municipal officials from all across the province have a chance to grill the premier and many ministers in a session called the ‘Bear Pit’ – and one mayor didn’t hesitate to partake of the opportunity.

“Mr. Premier, we had a school division board that was unresponsive to the people and let the administration run roughshod. So last fall we the people retired most of them. We have the same problem with the health board, but they’re appointed,” said Scott Morvik, mayor of Eastend. “So my question is, will you either, A, retire them or B, make them elected so we can do it for you?”
Morvik was first in line to ask a live question at the Regina event. Ironically, as he posed his playfully-worded request, hospital steering committee members were also in Regina meeting with the deputy minister of health.
Morvik’s question must have resonated with the crowd as it was met with thunderous applause and laughter.

Premier Brad Wall responded.
“There have been some concerns with respect to healthcare in the Southwest and some specific concerns around the Maple Creek hospital,” said Wall before thanking everyone who currently works for health boards around the province. “With respect to the Maple Creek project, I think there were some mistakes made along the way. The government as you know has approved a facility for Maple Creek, a new one. It’s a question of size. The local folks think the size is not big enough and they went ahead on their own and contracted a consulting firm to look at a larger hospital and make the case for that.”
Wall attributed some of the problem in coming to an agreement over the facility to his government.
“I think where there was perhaps a mistake made is that there wasn’t a meeting held early on between health ministry officials or even the health board and the consultants that were hired by the Maple Creek folks to see if there’s a compromise possible. There’s no question about the government’s resolve. There needs to be a better facility in Maple Creek.”
In a separate question, Leader councillor Sarah Andreas asked what was being done to recruit healthcare professionals, paticularly nurses. Don McMorris, health minister, said the province is much better staffed with nurses than in some previous years and the government is focusing hard on physician training.

“The other thing we are doing on the urban-rural piece, for as long as the college of medicine has been around, most of the residency positions were all in Saskatoon. Some of those have been spread out to Regina. But we’re taking it even further, we’re doing a distributive education model where we’re trying to move those residents into smaller communities other than Regina and Saskatoon such as a Swift Current and other communities – perhaps even a Moosomin,” said McMorris.
The numerous NDP members standing along the wall at the back of the room would have to have been deaf not to pick up on the next election’s hot topic. Approximately 85 per cent of questions posed at the 2010 Bear Pit were healthcare related.