Health leader Fyke honoured for life’s work

Ken Fyke, former CEO of the Capital Health Region and former deputy minister of health in B.C. and Saskatchewan, received a lifetime achievement award from the University of Alberta on Friday.

Fyke, who lives in Cordova Bay, was awarded the school of public health’s inaugural Alumni Anniversary Award at a ceremony in Edmonton. The award recognizes Fyke’s contributions to public health during a career spanning more than four decades.

Fyke was part of the B.C. Royal Commission on Health Care and Costs and author of Saskatchewan’s Commission on Medicare. He also served as the Heart and Stroke Foundation’s chairman of the stroke strategy committee in 2011 helping to establish standards for strokes and stroke units.

But his legacy is his service as chairman of Canadian Blood Services — the agency established by governments in the wake of the tainted-blood scandal, replacing the Red Cross.

“My greatest satisfaction is setting up a voluntary safe blood system for Canada,” Fyke said in an interview from Edmonton.

Fyke told graduate students at the university to push ideas through to people in power.

“As a leader, you need to have the courage to speak truth to power,” he said. “Otherwise, those in power will not understand the implications of the issues or the decisions being made.”

In the 1990s, as a member of the B.C. Royal Commission, Fyke advocated for bicycle helmet use and was influential in passing legislation requiring it. Now retired, Fyke, 76, still cycles 100 kilometres a week — often with his wife of 52 years, Dawn, 74, a former nurse.

“There is so much more to health than health care. If you create an environment to prevent illness, you won’t have to spend as many resources on acute care,” he said. “Instead, you will enhance the health of the individual, as well as the national health.”

Fyke, a Member of the Order of Canada in recognition of his leadership in health policy and administration, was CEO of the Capital Health Region, which brought under one roof 100 health programs.

The regional authority was later swallowed by the Vancouver Island Health Authority.

The amalgamations and top-down management were controversial at the time, but Fyke said governments and regions waste too much time on structures — often creating turmoil — and not enough on the quality of services they deliver.

Don Juzwishin, adjunct professor in the school of public health, worked with Fyke for more than three decades.

“Ken always showed principled behaviour,” Juzwishin said in a statement. “He did the right thing in the interests of the public’s health, even if it appeared unpopular or unconventional.”