A Horizon Health board member fired in the health system’s leadership shakeup is pushing back against Premier Blaine Higgs’ argument that the board is creating bureaucratic barriers to reform.
Linda Forrestal, who has been an elected member of Horizon Health Network’s board of directors for 10 years, says the premier’s removal of all voting members last Friday came as a complete surprise.
“We collaborated in as many ways as possible,” Forrestal said.
“We have tried time and time again to respond at lightning speed to requests from the Department of Health, only to have them remain at that level or be delayed, postponed or refused.”
On Friday, after a man died in a Fredericton emergency room while waiting for help, Higgs replaced the health minister, fired Horizon’s executive director and replaced the 15 voting members of Horizon and Vitalité’s boards with one trustee each.
Higgs said disbanding the boards would eliminate “bureaucratic gridlock” and make the system more efficient, but did not explain how.
“I completely disagree with that,” Forrestal said Wednesday.
“Our people at Horizon were involved in the development of the provincial health plan, we helped craft it, we worked with the task force, we implemented it. … We incorporated the recommendations of the provincial health plan into Horizon’s strategic plan.
“So no, I don’t support that at all.”
Public dismissal
Forrestle said she received the news that she had been removed from the board through a colleague who watched the news conference Higgs called to announce the move.
The colleague’s text read: “I really enjoyed working with you.”
“My phone started ringing off the hook from fellow board members,” Forrestal said. “So I called [chair] Jeff McAloon and said, “What’s going on?” He said, “We’re…cancelled.”
“I do not know why. Really and truly not… except that unfortunate death in the emergency room at Chalmers Hospital.’
John McGarry, a former Horizon board member and CEO who was fired by Shephard last year, agreed that Higgs’ decision made no sense.
McGarry said he didn’t know “if it’s just a knee-jerk reaction to someone yelling, ‘Do something, do whatever,’ and that was the first thing that came to mind.”
Former Horizon Health Network President John McGarry called the sudden, public firing of the board members “mismanagement.” (CBC)
He wondered why, when other players involved in running the health system were appointed by the government, Higgs focused on removing people from regional health networks.
The reshuffle of cabinet ministers, moving cabinet minister Bruce Fitch to health and Dorothy Shepard to social development, was a “lateral move” and bureaucrats at the top were “protected”, McGarry said.
“It’s kind of the easy way out,” he said.
And making the changes out of the blue, without warning to those affected, “is not a sign of good governance.”
McGarry also said that when he was fired by Shepherd, it happened the same way.
“I think it’s a drive-by shooting, it’s not fair to say those things in a press conference or in public without giving the organization a chance to look into it,” he said.
Forrestle said Horizon’s board has made recommendations over the years that have been rejected. One was to centralize certain procedures at certain regional hospitals, which before Friday appeared to finally be on the way to being implemented for hip and knee surgeries.
Another recommendation the province won’t accept calls for a greater focus on building nursing homes to free up acute care beds in hospitals.
During his 10-year tenure, Forrestal saw three governments, four board chairs and five chief executives.
“You can see that changes at the top are predictably not necessarily the best outcome for the delivery of the health system or health services in the province,” she said.
One person voted more “agile” than 15
On Wednesday, new Health Secretary Fitch echoed Higgs’ point that boards put up bureaucratic barriers to getting things done.
“There seems to be an opportunity — with less red tape, no big boards — to break down and make some changes that need to be changed without getting bogged down in red tape,” he told Information Morning in the Summer.
Fitch had no specific examples of the bureaucratic tangles he blamed on the boards.
The Board of Directors has three non-voting members and 15 voting members. In making that decision, Fitch effectively replaced all 15 people with one trustee, constitutional attorney Lyle Skinner said.
Attorney Lyle Skinner says the Horizon and Vitalité boards of directors still exist, but now have only one voting member. (Submitted by Lyle Skinner)
That means just one person will vote on how to advise the health network, what recommendations to make and who the next CEO will be.
“It has always been reported that the board was dissolved and that is technically incorrect,” Skinner said. “Just the board, the voting members have ceased to hold office. There is a board that has only one voting member.’
The people elected as trustees of the two health authorities are Gerald Richard for Vitalité and Suzanne Johnston for Horizon. They also co-chair the Health Plan Implementation Task Force, responsible for figuring out how to implement a timely overhaul of the province’s health system.
Fitch said this change will mean the province can “be nimble, respond quickly, using best practices.”
The board was acting cautiously, says the former director
McGarry said change could happen more quickly when people were taken out of the system, leaving “a direct link to the prime minister or the minister”.
But he said the lack of differing opinions can lead to bad decisions.
Forrestle said Horizon’s board hasn’t stopped trying to make quick decisions, but directors have also tried to be cautious.
“You don’t just measure once or twice before you cut,” she said. “You measure 15 times before you cut.”
Skinner said trustees have a single vote in deciding what advice and recommendations to give the health authority, but they will still make decisions with the help of the three non-voting board members who remain.
“There is still a chief executive … and the two chairmen of the professional and medical advisory committees,” he said. “It’s not like the guardian is just having a private meeting.”
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