Regulations and paperwork tie doctor’s hands

The three people making decisions in this picture know very little about health care . Rick Adams, left, executive director of the QEH, Minister Doug Currie and Premier Robert Ghiz. Guardian photo by Brian McInnis

We don’t need more doctors. We need to use our doctors more wisely. Doctors are prisoners of 40 years of bureaucracy and mistrust on the government side.

The Premier has announced cutbacks are coming to save the deficit. When you need to save money, don’t look at layoffs: change the way people work. Change your policies and procedures. Old systems have layers of expensive bureaucracy built into the system. The medical crisis on PEI is a perfect example.

The people making decisions in the health care system are not trained or experienced in providing or managing health services. In the picture only the technician Christian Schipper knows what she is doing. Rick Adams who runs the hospital is a government accountant with patronage ties to the Liberal party. Premier Ghiz is a political science major born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Doug Currie was a hockey coach and school principal.

The current system of medicare is 40+ years old. It’s a patchwork of illogical policies and procedures that have our doctors doing bookkeeping one third of their time. They are contracted by the Province to practice 65% of their time and fill out forms the remainder. 

Who thought of that? Accountants, people who count beans for a living. The quintessential government accountant seeks perfection in recording and controlling how money is spent.

If the government losses money and the Auditor General finds it, a policy is built around avoiding the AG finding it again and perhaps stemming the loss.

The Auditor General spends his time picking on the government and the government builds more and more regulations and policies to avoid getting bad reports.

That’s why doctors spend their time filling out reports. The government doesn’t trust them so the doctors have to prove they are seeing patients.

Politicians should have the courage to change the system and explain why spending $100 to save $10 is a waste of taxpayers dollars.

When the money flowed freely from Ottawa, PEI didn’t care. Why turn off the tap when there is lots of water?

We are discovering a whole new world of lowered expectations and revenues. We need to quickly change the system to become more efficient.

Can we trust doctors not to cheat? One would assume we could trust doctors; however. computer checks and balances can easily identify anyone who appears to be over billing and flag them for audit.

Money to waste, physician resources to waste. As health care costs move past 50% of the Provincial budget it’s about time common sense was used.