We’ve already passed the point where the cost of not having a public inquiry into Alberta’s health-care management are greater than the cost of having one.
And we’ve already passed the point where a new Progressive Conservative party leader and premier of Alberta will be chosen before the inquiry’s final report comes out, so the next regime can put a little space between itself and this one.
Dr. John Cowell, chief executive of the Health Quality Council of Alberta, says he expects to get proceedings under way in about two weeks and it will take about nine months to complete.
Add time to boil all the review’s findings into a final report and we shouldn’t be surprised to finally read about the 330 cases of bad medical outcomes allegedly due to poor management about a year from now.
We don’t know who will be premier or health minister a year from now. Amazingly enough for dynasty-bound Alberta politics, we do not even know for sure which party will form the government a year from now.
So if you are thinking there will be blame or punishment, “I told you so” or even just “I’m sorry” from this inquiry into public health, you’ll be wasting a year waiting for it.
That’s if our system of open inquiry into the practices of power works.
If it doesn’t, vengeance won’t begin to describe what happens after.
Cowell appears to understand what Albertans expect from his inquiry — even if those expectations don’t match the terms of reference of what he is being charged to look at.
He’s already made efforts to display how “arm’s length” his review will be.
“I’m certainly nobody’s lapdog,” he told reporters.
“If there was interference, I would resign.”
“There will be no changes to our report, no suppression, no delays. When it’s ready, it will go public.”
That much should provide some comfort to people who believe government has the means and the will to intimidate doctors and other medical experts against telling a public inquiry that they warned about problems years ago, and were never given a hearing.
Because all it would take would be one word from Cowell about interference, no matter how slight, and the entire government would stand condemned.
It would only take one complaint about paragraphs deleted from the final report, or a wondering aloud about why it is not made public, and if there’s still a Tory in the legislature a year from now, it would probably be their last session.
That’s really what this health-care inquiry is about, isn’t it?
It isn’t about 330 patients in emergency wards in a few Edmonton hospitals, although they should be important enough on their own.
It’s about the gap of trust between the people of Alberta and their government.
We’re the richest province in Canada, we spend the most per capita on health care, and we don’t have the best health care that money can buy. At least we don’t feel that we have.
We have heard people say our own doctors and nurses are not being heard to either identify problems or solutions, and we want to know what’s gone wrong.
In fact, we’ve heard rumours that medical experts who speak out about problems with government practices have reason to fear for their livelihoods.
Albertans have found reason to believe — despite all assurances to the contrary — that there is a plan to make public health care look and act so bad that we’ll accept privatized two-tier care dressed up as a solution.
None of this is in the terms of reference for an inquiry into 330 cases in Edmonton hospitals, headed by Cowell.
But a year from now, that’s what Albertans will judge.
Greg Neiman is an Advocate editor.