Supervisor appointed in Brampton Civic Hospital

Ken White, former CEO at Trillium Health Centre in Mississauga, will at least spend the next six to nine months, coming up with an action plan to improve communication between the hospital and the community, ensure proper staffing and reduce wait times in the emergency ward.

Amid reports that a patient had the wrong leg operated on at Brampton Civic, Ontario's first public-private hospital, Health Minister George Smitherman has named the supervisor who will look into problems at the new facility.

"People in the community should expect more answers to the questions raised ... What we see here is evidence of the need to do better," Smitherman told a press conference at the Brampton site of the William Osler Health Centre yesterday.

Smitherman took the rare step of appointing a supervisor to restore public confidence in Brampton Civic after the deaths of Harnek Sidhu, 52, of pancreatitis and Amarjit Narwal, 42, of a stroke, sparked a huge community protest in early December.

Then, on Christmas Day, 72-year-old Amar Kaur Brar complained doctors cut open her right leg by mistake when she went to hospital for surgery on her fractured left leg.

Although he had been an investigator at Brampton Civic for about a year, helping it to ramp up to its opening on October 28th, White said he was "not at all familiar" with concerns raised by the community about a shortage of staff, unduly long waits in emergency and a lack of beds.

"It's very sad there's all kinds of these misadventures in health care happening across Canada," White told reporters in an interview after the press conference.

Smitherman blamed "mischief makers" and alluded to persistent negative media reports about problems at the hospital since it opened as being a factor in attracting staff to work at the centre.

Some of those reports have been "pretty far off the mark," he said.

Brampton Civic, which replaced Peel Memorial Hospital, "overnight gained 100 beds, which is unheard of in health care" today, said Smitherman.
However, he did acknowledge staffing challenges.

Source: The Star

This is a video from CBC News concerning the appointment of Ken White

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William Osler Health Centre's CEO Bob Richards and Hilary Short, head of the Ontario Hospital Association, have publicly stated that the public-private partnership (P3) funding model used to construct the Brampton Civic Hospital has no impact on patient care.
Government documents detailing this deal, only obtained after a four-year court battle, show otherwise.

These documents revealed that this hospital has cost $340 million more because of the P3 financial model.
That much money could have built another badly needed new hospital in the city would have provided all of the promised 608 beds in the new hospital.

"The people of Brampton know that they are not getting adequate health care, and they also know that our P3 hospital has cost more and delivered less," said Dora Jeffries, Chair of Ontario Health, who wrote a letter to the The Star.

Although she is not from the Asian community herself, she did attend the weekend rally in Brampton protesting the inadequate health-care services in the city.
Many residents of Brampton from all communities have been deeply concerned about this problem for several years.

"We have many questions and we are not getting straight answers. Why do we have less than one hospital bed per 1,000 people in Brampton, while the rest of Canada has nearly three beds per 1,000? Why did our hospital cost more than $880 million, and promise 608 beds and only deliver 479?"

The protest last weekend was also about people, mainly Indo-Canadians, demanding Health Minister George Smitherman to reopen Peel Memorial Hospital. Residents have complained about the service they have received at Brampton Civic Hospital, Peel Memorial's replacement.

Peel Memorial is slated to be renovated and reopened in about two years. However, the community asked at the rally that the opening date be moved up.

The rally was originally meant to end up at Brampton Civic but there was a concern the disruption could compromise patients' health care.

Star, CTV

Editor's opinion:

"Isn't it time for some real CEO's, coming from real businesses, where they are really held accountable for spendings, to take over the steering wheel from the Bob Richards' in health care?"

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