Yesterday, the government announced a transformation in health-care services in Manitoba, set to be phased in over the next five years.

Minister of Health Kelvin Goertzen says the new system is a way to ensure proper healthcare for years to come, as the province has been among the highest spenders per capita for health-care in Canada, and a key indicator for performance say we aren't where we should be for that level of investment.

"This is about ensuring that care is delivered in a better way and more effective way," says Goertzen. "But when you do that, you do find deficiencies, and that is not something that I would apologize for, because as the Minister or Health, I have a responsiblity to ensure that health-care is delivered today, but I also have a responsibility to ensure that health-care is sustainable to be able to be delivered tomorrow for your kids, for mine, and for our grandkids. That's an important committement we've made to Manitobans."

The major change will be an umbrella organization called 'Shared Health' that will take over provincial responsibilities. Transformation Management Leader Ian Shaw summarizes the first phase.

"The first step in the transformation will be to take out the common shared services that can be delievered at a provincial scale and introduce them to Shared Health," says Shaw. "Those would be things like on the health support side, laundry and food services, or the administrative service side, payroll and benefits, supply chains, or other functions like that."

The second phase, will see Shared Health take over responsibilities from the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba, Selkirk Mental Health and Cadam Provincial lab.

Shaw says this new blueprint sees a third phase which aims to strengthen the role of the management roles within the system. He says Shared Health's major role is a support to various regional health authorities (RHA's) to deliver core clinical preventive planning services together with adminstrative shared services in support of a strengthened department.

In a news release, the province said the new system will cut back the number of organizations (eight instead of 12), boards (seven instead of nine), bargaining units (approximately 40 instead of 183) and "service purchase agreements" (two instead of 250 plus), the release said.

The minister noted that between 2003 and 2016, health-care funding rose by 97 per cent. Despite these funding increases, Manitoba remains at or near the bottom of national rankings in a number of categories including waits for hip or knee replacement surgery, cataract surgery and physician assessments in emergency departments.

Shaw notes health-care costs have went up 5.8 per cent annually in recent years, and Shared Health will become the 10th largest employer in the country.

The transformation aims to reduce costs and save the government approximately $64 million a year, with a projected savings of $200 million in the near future.

A 15-member team was created to work on the transformation, but Goertzen did not state how many jobs might be lost due to the changes.