Ex-Fraser Health CEO quits New Zealand post over spending furor
Dr. Nigel Murray, the former chief executive of Fraser Health who resigned three years ago from his high-paid post in B.C. to take a similar job in New Zealand, has resigned again and remains under a cloud of suspicion there over excessive, unauthorized expense claims.
Murray was the highest-paid ($444,000 total compensation) health authority CEO when he worked in B.C. from 2007 to 2014. He then moved back to his native New Zealand, but resigned as the chief of the Waikato district board last month after an independent inquiry found numerous potential breaches of his financial obligations.
He has reportedly agreed to repay all outstanding amounts and according to the latest media reports, the government’s Serious Fraud Office is now doing a preliminary investigation of Murray’s expenses and spending, as is the auditor general.
Murray was paid NZ$560,000 ($490,000) a year as head of a district health region that covers about 20 per cent of the population of Fraser Health. He was on leave for four months while an audit of his spending was taking place. Some of the expenses related to relocation costs from Canada, but more than $100,000 of the expense claims related to taxpayer-funded travel abroad. In one example of “lavishness,” Murray was criticized for spending about $1,000 a day at a swanky California hotel while on a Silicon Valley business trip. Murray travelled half the year last year.
New Zealand media outlets have pursued the Murray expense claim scandal relentlessly, producing countless articles with a mocking tone. Freedom of information disclosures to New Zealand journalists show that Murray made at least 16 trips abroad over three years and expenses related to that travel and other items came to NZ$218,000.
The fiasco forced the resignation last week of the chairman of the health district board, Bob Simcock, who said Murray “quite clearly” acted outside of policies on a number of occasions. Asked if he felt “hoodwinked” by Murray, Simcock sidestepped that question and said he felt “incredibly angry.”
Murray’s tenure in New Zealand has been dogged with controversy from the beginning, partly because critics in New Zealand questioned why he’d be an asset there when, as CEO in Fraser Health, the health region had some of the worst patient safety and quality of hospital care outcomes in Canada. The choice of Murray was also controversial because he was said to be unpopular with medical associates the last time he worked in New Zealand.
Murray left B.C. a few weeks before the release of a damning Canadian Hospital Reporting Project. The health minister at the time, Terry Lake, later ordered a review of Fraser Health after it failed to meet its budget three years in a row, continually grappled with hospital congestion problems and experienced recurring difficulties with hospital-acquired infections.
Michael Marchbank is the current CEO of Fraser Health with compensation of $390,000. It is near impossible to compare his handling of regional health system issues against Murray because some of the hospital reporting measurements changed after Murray left. The latest data, however, would appear to show improvement. The region is meeting many targets except for things like emergency patients waiting far too long for hospital beds (Delta Hospital is particularly bad) and far too many patients using emergency rooms for low acuity issues, especially in places like Hope.
The current whereabouts of Murray are unknown, so he could not be reached for comment. Simcock has told journalists that officials in New Zealand are communicating with Murray through lawyers.
The B.C. Ministry of Health and Fraser Health were asked for comments for this article, but they declined to respond.