Raj Sherman keeps poking provincial health officials, and the Conservative government, with a sharp stick.
The government’s response must be a prompt, independent examination of Sherman’s allegations.
Anything less will feed Albertans’ fears that the worst kind of mismanagement is at the root of the province’s health-care crisis: malfeasance on the part of its political masters.
In the last five months, the independent Edmonton MLA has railed repeatedly against the Conservative government’s health-care record.
He has lambasted his former party for its management of emergency care and renounced Premier Ed Stelmach for failing to fulfil promises to repair the emergency room system. He has charged that the flaws in the system have led to deaths.
Sherman, himself a part-time emergency room doctor, has also criticized Alberta Health Services and former minister Ron Liepert for demoralizing health-care staff.
His condemnation of the Tories and their Alberta Health Services administration led to his expulsion from the Conservative caucus in November.
Now Sherman has told the Alberta legislature that millions of dollars in public money has been used to sweep away allegations by doctors that 250 Albertans died while waiting for cancer surgery between 2001 and 2006.
He claims that competition for scarce operating room time meant as many as 1,200 cancer patients were on a wait list for lung surgery and 250 of those patients died.
Implicit in this allegation is that the Tories created the dire situation by underfunding health care and failing to provide the resources needed to maintain adequate care.
“It has also come to my attention that physicians who raised these issues were punished, driven out of the province or paid out in millions to buy their silence and the cost buried in (two sets of financial) books,” Sherman told the legislature on Monday.
He claims these actions were taken under two health ministers, Gary Mar and Iris Evans.
In the protected forum that is the legislature, politicians can and do say much that is both inflammatory and politically motivated in the extreme.
In some instances, utterances in the house would never be repeated outside it for fear of defamation action.
But Sherman’s allegations — for which he offered no documentation or sources — are so damning that they must be thoroughly and independently investigated, even if the rookie MLA is unwilling to repeat them outside the legislature.
What he alleges goes to the very heart of democracy: without the open, honest administration of government and its services, we lose all trust in those we elect, and those appointed by those we elect.
Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky wants to know where Sherman’s information came from. It’s a legitimate question. But far more critical is whether the allegations are accurate.
Albertans need to know the truth of these allegations, no matter how devastating that truth may be to both the Tories and Alberta Health Services.
The only way to get to the truth, and satisfy Albertans that the answers are genuine, is to appoint an independent investigator.
Give that investigator the tools, the authority and the support to get to the bottom of these allegations. And make it happen in a quick and transparent fashion.
If that doesn’t happen, more people with sharp sticks will start poking at the Tories.
John Stewart is the Advocate’s managing editor.