In Brief – Shredding of health care in Peterborough “unconscionable”

“You ask anyone from any community if they think the LHINs are looking out for their interests and they’ll tell you no,” NDP Leader Andrea Horwath told the Peterborough Examiner Thursday. “They’ve been set up to be the buffer of accountability for the government.” Horwath arrived in Peterborough as the hospital finalized its “hospital improvement plan,” which will cut more than 180 full-time equivalent positions to balance its budget. She said the shredding of local health care was “absolutely unconscionable.” … South Bruce Grey Health Centre officially took away voting rights of hospital members at their Annual General Meeting on Wednesday. The board also reduced its size from 21 to 11 and took away controversial voting rights of its CEO. Outgoing board chairman Dan Gieruszak said the vote was taken away from hospital members out of concern that special interests would “hijack” the agenda of the board. By special interests, he could very well be speaking of community members upset by how their hospital is being run. In recent years SBGHC has cut services with little consultation with the community. …. A report from the Saskatchewan Health Quality Council says one in three long term residents in that province has been given the wrong medication at some point in the year. The Council is also concerned about how often prescriptions are written for benzodiazepines, a medication prescribed for anxiety and insomnia that increases the risk of falling. … Doctors in Moncton are outraged by the suspension of a local doctor. Dr. Richard Garceau, a microbiolgoist and an infectious diseases specialist, was suspended four weeks ago without explanation. Garceau had been outspoken about the New Brunswick’s pandemic preparations. He had also criticized management of his own local hospital. “Yes, we are afraid of speaking out about this because who is the next doctor that will, like Dr. Garceau, tell what he thinks is not correct in the hospital and is there a possibility of this doctor being suspended,” Dr. Gabriel Girouard told the CBC. … A controversial UK health care CEO was awarded £190,000 (almost $300,000 Canadian dollars) after winning her court battle over a severance payment. Rose Gibb, former CEO of the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells National Health Service Trust in Kent, went to court after the government withheld severance payment she was offered in return for stepping down. Gibb left her £150,000-a-year post in October 2007, days before a highly critical report was published on the spread of Clostridium difficile (C diff) on overcrowded and dirty wards. One of the worst hospital outbreaks in the UK, it left 90 people dead. One family member who lost her mother-in-law at one of the Trust hospitals, described the decision as an “outrage” to all who lost friends and relatives through the outbreak. The board of the Trust resigned upon publication of the report. … The Metroland newspaper chain has begun running an investigative series on long term care. See

http://www.caledonenterprise.com/article/90126