LETHBRIDGE — Health Minister Fred Horne has fired the board that oversees Alberta’s health-care delivery over its refusal to cancel executive bonuses.
Horne said board members of Alberta Health Services were appointed to serve Albertans and taxpayers would find the extra cash payments “absolutely unacceptable.”
“When we appoint people to act on boards, they are serving the shareholder and that shareholder is Albertans, and Albertans are represented by the minister of health and other elected people,” told a news conference in Lethbridge, where Premier Alison Redford and her cabinet were meeting.
“So it is very important when boards are going about making decisions and carrying out their work that they are thinking about the need for oversight (and that) they are thinking about our connection to the community.”
Janet Davidson, a former nurse and now a health official, has been appointed to act in place of the board.
The Alberta Health Services website lists 10 board members.
Chairman Stephen Lockwood had defied an order from Horne on Tuesday to cancel $3.2 million in bonus payouts to 99 executives.
Horne told the news conference some executives indicated they would give up the bonuses, but the board wouldn’t let them.
“Regrettably, the premier, my cabinet colleagues and I were forced to consider whether Albertans can continue to have confidence in the board’s ongoing ability to direct change in the health-care system.”
Lockwood said Tuesday that the government was compromising the board’s autonomy.
“It’s about the ability of AHS to operate independently from government, and our ability to make operating decisions that we believe are in the best interests of providing quality health care,” he said.
“For us to govern effectively, there must be separation between us and government.”
He noted the bonus payments were for the 2013 fiscal year and would not have been paid in the future.
Horne had issued a public statement urging the board reject the bonuses, given that the government is tightening its belt and that doctors and teachers are dealing with wage freezes.
The board’s defiance illuminated the long-standing, fuzzy line between where the authority of Alberta Health Services, or AHS, ends and the authority of the health minister begins. AHS was created as an arm’s-length agency to deliver day-to-day care in hospitals and clinics and to ensure decisions are made free of political influence or partisanship. The board still ultimately answers to the health minister.
Horne on Tuesday also said there would be reviews of government agencies, starting with AHS.
Lockwood called that redundant. He pointed to a government report that was completed late last year but never released.
“We’ve been through that process,” he said. “We don’t need to spend more taxpayers’ money studying governance. Release the paper that has already been done.”
He also suggested the government is delaying the release of financial data from AHS.
“We’ve been directed to defer release of our annual report and our financial statements. I wonder why that is,” said Lockwood.
He said in the 2012-13 year, AHS recorded a $100-million surplus, but wasn’t allowed to release that information.
“In my view, good governance and best practice would include releasing documents like that.”