As Saskatchewan residents, the era of the mega-board is upon us for both health care and education, and in the southeast, the mega-boards will have their hands full in 2007.

In the area of health care, the Sun Country Health Region now encompasses the entire southeast area, and one of the main ongoing issues which will go on into 2007 is the recruitment and retention of health care professionals, of doctors, nurses and other specialized staff. As of their last board meeting of 2006, there is some progress being made in this area, but as it applies to all health regions of the province, it will be a long-term issue for the health region.

Also for Sun Country, they are beginning construction of a new renal dialysis facility at the Estevan hospital, and once this is completed, southeast kidney patients will have access to this much-needed service that should help keep pressure off the larger urban centres like Regina and Saskatoon.

Over and above these concerns, the regional health board has to try and make sure their budget is balanced, and as funding comes from the province for health care services, this is not always an easy task. With increased funding from the federal government in recent years, however, hopefully this won't be such a huge challenge for the regional board to meet.

On the education side, both Southeast Cornerstone and Holy Family boards are going into the new year after spending 2006 getting their personnel, policies and board structure in place. For Cornerstone, there are still some major decisions the board will now have to take a serious look at as regards the school facilities in the Weyburn and surrounding area.

In the city, residents and teachers alike are nervously awaiting further word on the set of options given the former school board immediately preceding Cornerstone, some of which had some radical suggestions for reconfiguring the setup of schools in the city. The options range from renovations to those buildings that need it (Haig School in particular) to closing a couple of the elementary schools and moving them into the junior high building, and moving the junior high program into the Comp where there is supposedly room (on a square-foot basis).

Will the facilities review and decision-making happen in 2007? Time will tell; part of the difficulty for the board is, Weyburn is only one centre out of many around the southeast, and those communities with school facilities all have their own issues and problems to deal with.

For Holy Family, their consolidation of facilities is already underway, as equipment is even now working behind St. Michael School to start on the addition and renovations which will see a total of seven new classrooms built. The hope for the board is that the new space will be ready to move into at the start of the next school year in the fall of 2007.

Area residents will want to stay tuned as more developments occur in both of these vital areas of the community in the year to come. - Greg Nikkel