The Future Is In Our Past -
'Wait long enough and all will be revealed' is an old saying that aptly describes the recent revelations at the province's largest healthcare board. If we wait long enough, openness and transparency might be dragged kicking and screaming to the table.
We know those two wonderful words are lurking in the background somewhere. The Minister of Health has told us often enough that he has welcomed them into his department. We believed him, but recent events make us wonder if they came, saw and left again without conquering. The Minister's words notwithstanding, the province is still waiting for "veni, vidi, vici" at Eastern Health.
Perhaps a recap is necessary to put things into perspective. The point at which we believe the trouble began is when some women in the province were given the wrong treatment for breast cancer because of faulty lab results. This was because the tests were performed on new lab equipment that the lab staff did not have sufficient expertise to operate. Justice Margaret Cameron held an inquiry and produced recommendations designed to prevent a similar occurrence.
In order to ensure that things would run smoothly, with regard to implementing the Cameron Report's recommendations, the Department of Health brought in a new Chief Executive Officer from outside the province. In Dr. Pangloss' best of all possible worlds, this might have worked. But we don't live in the best of all possible worlds.
Pandora's Box has been opened at Eastern Health, and the same old management in the same old system in the same old culture does not have a chance of a snowball in 'he two sticks' of stuffing the issues back into the jar. The CEO may be a new face but she comes from a management system that has produced similar problems throughout the healthcare industry.
The new CEO has had a year in which things have gone from bad to worse. Equipment in the lab is still not working properly, and people are still suffering because no one knows what to do to correct the problems. This is where openness and transparency should be a part of the correction process.
How good we all felt when the Minister of Health and the CEO called a news conference with an update on the problems with equipment. At last openness and transparency were here. How let down we all felt when the very next day it was revealed that this was not an example of openness. Rather it was an example of government, with its feet to the fire, trying to get ahead of a family that was preparing to go public. The family had grave concerns about a loved one who was critically ill because of mistakes in the lab. The destructive defensiveness that was the cause of the problems, from the beginning, was still there.
The Minister and the CEO tried to explain away the timing of the news conference and once again we tried to have faith. We really wanted to believe that if we gave them enough time to sort it out, they would conquer. What clinched it for me, when it finally sunk in how bad things really are at Eastern Health, was the press conference that made one of the lab managers a scapegoat. The impression was given that he resigned after the latest problem, when his resignation had been tendered before Christmas.
It has all come down to winning and losing, and the same old need to save face. We all know that everything in this society we have created is about winning and losing. Yet, if this attitude is kept in its proper place, the workplace can function, after a fashion. When things deteriorate to the point of public condemnation, the battle lines are drawn and the lines set up a battlefield where resolution will hover out of reach for a very long time. The question is: can anything be done to remedy the conflict at Eastern Health?
Let's be optimistic. The glass may not be brimming but it's at least half full. The professionals who staff our healthcare system are second to none. It's not their fault if training isn't provided for the new technology and techniques that are appearing at an alarming rate. It's not their fault if government and the Board have created a workplace environment where battle lines are drawn. It's now time for openness and transparency to be let loose. The public has had enough of defensiveness masquerading as openness and transparency.
The only way the issues at Eastern Health will ever be resolved is for everyone to say what they feel without fear of retaliation. Workers must be harbouring some very serious grievances and that is destructive for everyone involved, including families.
It's time to acknowledge that Eastern Health is festering. It's time to get rid of the corporate structure that does not put people first. Newfoundland and Labrador can lead the charge to a new way of looking at healthcare management. Seriously, it can and must be done, and can result in a global model. Then even our Premier can be treated here.
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