Rumblings of discontent after Barrette meets new MUHC board members
The new members of the board of directors of the McGill University Health Centre met for the first time on Monday, but there are already rumblings of discontent, the Montreal Gazette has learned.
The 10 independent members who were appointed by Health Minister Gaétan Barrette last month were invited to an orientation session at the Montreal General Hospital. However, the minister decided to exclude from that four-hour session the pre-existing members of the board who did not resign in July, sources told the Gazette.
The rationale for their exclusion is that Barrette did not want to waste the time of longtime members who had already gone through an orientation session years earlier. But Barrette’s decision nevertheless gave rise to concerns the minister appears to want to create “a board within a board.”
“The optics don’t look good on this one,” said one source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Barrette also raised eyebrows because of a lengthy presentation he gave extolling the virtues of the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital, which is part of the MUHC. Barrette suggested that the Neuro be given special attention, and he equated it with the Montreal Heart Institute, the sources said.
Although the Montreal Heart Institute is affiliated with the medical faculty of the Université de Montréal, it’s an independent institution.
It’s not part of the hospital network of the Centre hospitalier de Université de Montréal (CHUM), as the Neuro is with the MUHC. During his presentation, Barrette praised the work of Guy Rouleau, director of the Neuro.
The meeting took on heightened significance because of the number of speakers present.
Dr. Arvind K. Joshi, the former executive director of St. Mary’s Hospital, spoke about his report on the MUHC that he produced following extensive consultations on now-defunct proposals to merge the hospital network with other large health organizations.
Michel Bureau, a deputy health minister who had overseen the management of the MUHC’s finances as a government “accompagnateur” or monitor, also spoke at length. In addition, there was discussion about yet another report, one written by Claude Desjardins, a government accompagnateur who had recommended that the MUHC be placed under trusteeship.
Martine Alfonso, interim executive director of the MUHC, gave a brief presentation, too, but she did not stay for the whole session.
Peter Kruyt, the newly appointed chairman of the board and vicepresident of Power Corporation, said the new volunteer directors are “reaching out to a number of those involved with the MUHC, including existing board members.”
“Our objective is to get up to speed quickly and this is progressing quite well,” he added.
Julie White, Barrette’s press attaché, defended the decision to exclude the longtime board members from the orientation session. All nine of the pre-existing board members are from the greater McGill community, including Dr. Olivier Court, president of the MUHC’s council of physicians, dentists and pharmacists.
“We met the new members of the board of directors to give them information about the MUHC so that they can be on the same page as the other members of the board, with a view to their (upcoming) first meeting” together, White said by email. “This was a positive and constructive (orientation session).”