READY FOR A RESET AT MUHC
New board must turn page on poisonous, damaging antagonisms of last few years
The dust has settled since 10 independent members of the McGill University Health Centre’s board of directors quit in disgust two months ago, leaving a gaping hole in the governance of one of Montreal’s most important hospital networks and a major political problem for Quebec Health Minister Gaétan Barrette.
The resignations were the shocking climax of a bitter feud between the venerable institution and combative Barrette that featured a war of words over whether the MUHC is underfunded or poorly run.
The health minister had just come on a peace mission to the Montreal Gazette, purportedly to set the record straight with the English-speaking community on his very public criticism of the bilingual hospital network’s lack of leadership. But instead he poked a stick in the eye of already aggravated anglophone Montrealers, to whom the MUHC is an important touchstone.
Half the board members then threw up their hands and said they’d had enough, leaving Barrette to clean up a mess, mainly of his own making.
Whether the 10 board members were calling Barrette’s bluff or played right into the hands of a master tactician who was hoping they would walk the plank, a leadership vacuum was created that is still waiting to be filled. But an announcement may finally be imminent.
The Montreal Gazette’s Aaron Derfel reported Saturday that Barrette now has in his hands a list of 20 candidates from which to strike a new board. It was put together in the last two months by an eight-member search committee headed by Montreal lawyer David L. McAusland. It’s been a long wait, but a coolingoff period was probably a good thing.
The pressing question in midJuly was: who would be brave enough to step up to try to fix the MUHC after the tense and toxic relationship between Barrette and the last board? Montreal anglophones, allophones and francophones — all those who care about the future of the MUHC — were facing a Faustian dilemma.
Raise your hand too soon and you risked giving the impression you were willing to do the bidding of a cunning health minister who has repeatedly maligned the MUHC. But don’t put your name forward and risk an institution that has been built with the blood, sweat and tears of the anglophone community falling into the hands of a bunch of yes men carrying out the wishes of a health minister with unprecedented control.
The Quebec Community Groups Network, an anglophone rights group, raised eyebrows when it said in the immediate aftermath of the resignations that it had been working quietly behind the scenes to overhaul the board. The admission cast new light on a curious op-ed in the Montreal Gazette calling for renewal at the MUHC and urging people not to vilify the often unpopular Barrette.
If Barrette thought he could walk right in and quickly stack the MUHC board with people sympathetic to his aims, he miscalculated. Bill 10 may have given him the power to appoint the members of a drastically reduced number of governing boards overseeing all the health institutions in Quebec, but Barrette’s bulldozer reforms created a crisis for the Liberal government. He and Premier Philippe Couillard desperately need the new MUHC board to have legitimacy in the eyes of an increasingly disgruntled Montreal anglophone population (and as outrage grows over world-renowned pediatric hospital Ste-Justine being lumped into an unwieldy governing structure with the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal).
Fortunately, Barrette was forced to go back to the drawing board at the MUHC. His office initially said he expected to name replacements “within days.” But the summer-long vetting process led by an esteemed committee will hopefully yield a stronger board with the skill set needed to tackle the MUHC’s daunting challenges — and one that better reflects the cultural diversity of its users.
The finest minds are needed to right the listing ship. The MUHC has been kept afloat by interim executive director Martine Alfonso since Normand Rinfret retired a year ago, but it needs a permanent chief. Some $120 million in painful budget cuts have exacted a heavy toll on services as well as the morale of medical and administrative staff carrying an ever heavier load.
Over the summer, the ailing institution’s condition has further deteriorated, like a patient languishing on a waiting list.
The Royal Victoria Hospital has had to close two more operating rooms until the end of the year, leaving only eight of 13 brand-new, state-of-the-art ORs functioning in that wing of the $1.3-billion Glen site. This mothballing will only exacerbate already lengthy wait times for cancer or cardiac surgery at five MUHC hospitals.
And in a disturbing example of how close to the bone budget cuts have sliced, a psychiatric nurse was viciously attacked and strangled by a patient because the overnight security guard watching at the Montreal General Hospital ER had been axed.
Stabilizing the MUHC is becoming increasingly urgent.
The MUHC needs a new board that can turn the page on the poisonous and damaging antagonisms of the last few years. It must find a way to work with Barrette without kowtowing to his every whim.
And it must focus on the interests of the MUHC, the doctors, nurses, orderlies, technicians and staff who move heaven and earth delivering services, and the patients who rely on its expert care.
The community is waiting with bated breath for a denouement to this summer’s debacle — and indeed this entire acrimonious chapter in MUHC history — stat.