So the Saskatchewan government has undertaken a very ambitious review of our health care system, which culminated in the Patient First Review Report released very recently http://www.health.gov.sk.ca/patient-first-review. With only ONE Royal College trained Geriatrician in a province with the highest aging population in the country, and a recently closed Saskatoon Geriatric Assessment Unit, the closure of which resulted partly due to the difficulty in attracting physicians trained in geriatric care (the first line clinicians are also often GPs with Care of the Elderly training), it is difficult to believe that there really IS a strategy. So it was heartening to see the following in the Patient First Review:
“That the Ministry of Health’s Seniors’ Strategy under development focuses
on strengthening:
a) System capacity to support independent living;
b) Accessibility to personal care homes by addressing the current financial
barriers for low-income seniors;
c) Accessibility and quality of assisted living and long-term care;
d) Programming for seniors with extraordinary behaviours that cannot
be safely managed in the general long-term care population (e.g.
specialized assessment and treatment units); and
e) Capacity of geriatric assessment programs to provide multidisciplinary
assessments, short-term rehabilitation, day programs, and a specialized
outpatient clinic.”
As a medical student interested in geriatrics, and hoping to pursue a career that’s chock full of OLDER ADULTS:) I am heartened to see this resolve, but I would really like politicians to put their money where their mouth is and actually SHOW me how they will achieve this. Reviews are great to identify the issues, but I want to SEE how things will be fixed. If you have ideas about how to fix things, let me know!
There’s an old saying; ” Go into Cardiology and multiply salary by 2; go into Geriatrics and divide salary by 2.”
One of the problems about attracting persons to the field of Geriatrics is the pay, or rather lack of. Many students & residents I’ve worked with would love to be more involved in elder-care as a medical career, but most cite the pragmatic demands of paying off the high cost of education and the (relatively) poor income of Geriatrics compared to other medicine specialites.
Now I haven’t read the article above, but I’d imagine if the government of Saskatchewan would provide a very competitive and guaranteed salary and a turn-key operation with enhanced gerontological nursing and allied health support (the so-called “enhanced model) they’d be beating potential applicants off with a stick.
This is what some of the Gulf States (i.e. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, etc.) are doing now when they are paying to train residents in this country and others to return back home and set up programs in their native countries. On their return these MDs who have trained in elder-care will be paid incomes little different from that of other specialties AND they’ll be provided adequately resourced and staffed centres of excellence to provide appropriate elder care.
There *are* some problems you can solve if you spend enough time and money in human resources investment.
::B::