Opinion: Sask. must ponder bold private health-care solutions

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The dust has settled on the most recent provincial election, and the Saskatchewan Party will govern the province for at least four more years. Premier Moe has a lot on his plate, but fixing the broken health-care system should be at the top of his to-do list.

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Luckily, he and his party have already laid down a fair bit of groundwork and made some solid progress. But there’s much work to be done. Fortunately, the government isn’t on its own — it could easily copy what has already been proven to work in other parts of the world.

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Wait times in Saskatchewan have much room for improvement. The latest average surgical wait was over 31 weeks. It’s important to note that this figure doesn’t include waiting for diagnostics or specialists, so it’s likely even longer for the average patient.

This issue matters deeply to the people of our province. A poll released by CUPE ahead of the election showed 46 per cent of respondents with health care as their top concern. So what needs to be done?

One tactic the Saskatchewan Party has been happy to use has been contracting publicly funded, privately delivered surgeries. In its election platform, they boast that this model has delivered 165,000 surgeries since 2011.

The numbers back this tactic up. Coming out of the pandemic, Saskatchewan is the only province (that provided data) to have seen a drop in the number of patients waiting for surgery and diagnostics. This is good stuff. But why stop there?

There’s a unique opportunity for Saskatchewan, as it did in the days of Tommy Douglas, to lead in transforming Canada’s health-care system. For one, why not follow the lead of every other developed country with a universal system and allow patients to pay for surgery if they want to?

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An online poll commissioned by Second Street and conducted in October showed 61 per cent of Canadian respondents support keeping the public system, but allowing private options.

And why wouldn’t they? Canada is in a unique club — North Korea and Cuba are the only two other countries in the world with strict, sweeping bans on private health care. France, Australia, Germany are all countries with better health outcomes that allow patients to pay for care.

Of course, taking this bold step would likely lead to a political showdown with the federal government over the Canada Health Act. But this isn’t something Moe has shied away from in the past — just look at his persistent fight against the carbon tax.

In fact, Moe could simply say that Saskatchewan patients should have the same rights as Quebec patients — the latter being the only province that allows patients to pay for surgery.

Another huge step would be to make cross-border care more accessible. In the European Union, patients have the right to travel to another EU country, pay for care, then be reimbursed for up to what it would have cost to do the surgery locally.

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This helps give access to countless options for patients on waitlists, and also helps reduce pressure on the system at home. It’s pretty much cost-neutral, as you’re simply paying for the surgery earlier rather than later.

The above-mentioned poll showed a massive 73 per cent of Canadian respondents in favour of this policy.

And that’s not all. The world is full of great health-care policies that are more creative than simply throwing money at the problem. Take Ireland’s Cataract Express Bus.

They load up a bunch of patients on a bus and drive them to the United Kingdom to get cataract surgery. Instead of waiting years, they can get surgery within a couple of weeks.

There are clinics that can do these surgeries in Minot, ND — why not try loading up a bus in Estevan and slashing the cataract waitlist in an afternoon?

There is no perfect, one-size-fits-all fix to the Canadian health-care crisis, but Saskatchewan could use these and many other bold reform options to make real progress.

Dom Lucyk is the communications director with SecondStreet.org, a Canadian think tank.

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