Jon Hromek, the Sask United Party candidate for the Lumsden-Morse byelection, is frustrated with Saskatchewan healthcare and how Premier Scott Moe’s Sask Party manages the system..“No one really thinks about healthcare until all of a sudden they're in the hospital and really need to think about healthcare,” Hromek told the Western Standard..“It's staring them right in their face. So talking about healthcare, as you know, the government has for years, is just talking about it," said Hromek. "At the end of the day, you're known by your fruit, not your suit or your rhetoric.”.“The majority of the expenditures of the government is healthcare.”.“And again, we will take your money upfront, we will invest it in whatever and be able to give you a service in return and we're not seeing the bang for our buck. We're not seeing the service. And that is quite frustrating for a lot of people.”.READ MORE Sask United Party candidate wants to end ‘one-party’ Saskatchewan.Hromek views healthcare as a prepaid service that should be available when someone needs it..“Healthcare is not free. Now we think, well, it's universal. It's free. No, it's prepaid,” said Hromek..“You're paying for it every year, whether you use it or not. And you know, if you're quite healthy and you've lived to later on in life, while then it's time to be able to take advantage of all of those prepaid expenses.”.READ MORE Sask United calls for ‘parents rights’ amid sex cards scandal.Hromek wants to address the wait times, which are some of the longest in the country..“We need to start delivering on some of these promises of lowering wait times, increasing recruitment or more importantly, increasing enrolment of Saskatchewan students into the medical college in Saskatoon or increasing nursing spots or increasing enrolment in that master's program for nursing where they can be a nurse practitioner,” said Hromek..One of the significant issues in Saskatchewan healthcare is seniors' residences and nursing homes. Hromek wants to try and keep seniors in a home near where they would like to live..“What a great thing to do for rural Saskatchewan or for our seniors. You know, our seniors want to be able to stay in their communities,” said Hromek..“When the difficult time comes to needing to go to a home. To have to be shipped to a town that's two to three hours away from where they've grown up."."And if we have nurse practitioners and other support staff that can be able to keep them in their home longer or be able to open up more room in the local homes and serve where they can stay in their community."."That's only going to benefit the community as a whole. So as it relates to healthcare, I think that's an important thing to focus on as well.”.Byelection voting started on Aug. 3 and ends on August 10..The other Lumsden-Morse candidates are Les Guillemin (Buffalo Party of Saskatchewan), Kaitlyn Stadnyk (NDP), Isaiah Hunter (Saskatchewan Green Party) and Blaine McLeod (Saskatchewan Party).
