Manitoba's Health Minister says he is looking for ideas on how to make the province's health system more efficient and effective.

Kelvin Goertzen is inviting Manitobans to share their views in a survey, which closes December 14th.

Goertzen notes spending on health care in this province is more than $6 billion each year, which is more than 46 per cent of the provincial budget. He adds this level of spending is not sustainable in the long term.

The review is assessing spending against three criteria:
- economy - are activities implemented at a reasonable cost including the consideration of quality, per capita costs and unit costs for service delivery;
- efficiency - are the results appropriate when the investments are considered; and
- effectiveness - do actual outcomes meet the expected outcomes.

"An average hospital stay costs $6,152. Dialysis services for one patient can cost between $95,000 and $107,000 a year. With costs like these, we need to identify our priorities and make responsible, targeted investments," says Goertzen. "We want to hear directly from the people affected most, Manitobans, about what they think is needed to make our health-care system stronger."

An initial report is expected by the end of January.

The survey can be found at www.gov.mb.ca/health/haveyoursay.