Public inquiry will ‘improve Alberta’s health-care system’
Despite absence of smoking gun, commission head Vertes says public interest was served
Alberta’s health inquiry grappled with an “amorphous” topic, highprofile allegations that fizzled at the hearings and grave concerns about potential government interference as it looked into whether wealthy, privileged or politically connected patients got preferential access to medical care, the commission’s head says.
The $7-million public inquiry also showed Albertans where queuejumping exists in the health-care system and what steps can be taken to fix it, retired justice John Vertes said in an interview Friday.
Speaking for the first time since releasing his two-volume report on the Health Services Preferential Access Inquiry, Vertes said he completed the review satisfied that VIP access to medical care isn’t a widespread problem in Alberta.
The commissioner, a retired N.W.T. senior judge who served 20 years in the judiciary, also addressed a tense stand off with government earlier this year over a deadline extension.
Vertes said he intended to “touch a nerve” with government when he went public in March with concerns that denying his request for more time to finish the proceedings bordered on interference with the inquiry’s independence.
A month after Vertes had asked privately for a deadline extension in January — amid contentious new claims about systematic colon cancer screening queue-jumping involving a flagship Calgary clinic and an influential doctor — Health Minister Fred Horne’s office turned down his request and offered no explanation, the commissioner said.
“There was no reason, there was just a reaction. That was my concern.”
Vertes said without an extension he’d have had to either ignore the legislative order in council and carry on with hearings, or meet the deadline and file an incomplete report.
“The whole point of an indepen- dent inquiry is I can act independently and use my best judgment. At that point, I felt I had no other alternative but to go public with it because I was confronted with the untenable situation of either/or — neither of which would serve the public interest,” said Vertes, who released a public statement on the matter in early March.
Amid outcry from opposition critics, the government granted Vertes an extension to Aug. 31.
On Friday, Health Minister Fred Horne said the inquiry operated entirely independently of government.
“In the end, the commission of inquiry got the result it needed and we got a valuable report that’s going to help improve Alberta’s health-care system,” he added.
The Redford-government, meanwhile, has promised to take action on Vertes’ report, which offered 12 recommendations, including expanding whistleblower legislation to all doctors, clarifying the scope of professional courtesy and, simply, reducing wait times.
The inquiry, first announced in February 2012, took heat in the ensuing months for what critics called vague terms of reference that instructed it to look into whether improper preferential access is taking place in the medical system.
Vertes said Friday that he also faced early challenges pinning down the nature of the inquiry as he wasn’t involved in drafting the terms of reference.
Further, early on in the hearings, the allegations the inquiry first hinged on proved unfounded.
Past comments made by former Alberta Health Services boss Stephen Duckett about “go-to guys” in the old health regions who would adjust wait lists, and by Liberal Leader and emergency room doctor Raj Sherman that it was common for rich, connected patients to jump the queue, were dismantled during testimony.
“It’s as if all the air went out of the balloon and everyone started thinking, ‘What’s the point of it?’ ” Vertes said.
There were “no high-profile revelations, no Perry Mason moment at the public inquiry and, of course, that’s what everybody was at least anticipating.”
Vertes later wrote in his report that if a “modicum of effort” had been put into probing those claims when they were first made, their lack of substance would have been clear.
But there were some specific instances of queue-jumping in Alberta that were well-served by the inquiry’s public airing, Vertes said Friday.
The inquiry examined a number of situations that Vertes later deemed improper preferential access, including patients of a prominent endoscopist and from a private wellness centre getting fast-tracked colon cancer screening treatments for years, and the exclusive H1N1 immunization clinic set up for 150 Calgary Flames, staff and their families in 2009.
The commission didn’t allow for findings of civil or criminal liability. It is up to regulatory bodies or other responsible authorities to determine if there is need for further investigation, said Vertes.
The inquiry spent significant time exploring underlying health-care themes that could leave Alberta’s medical system vulnerable to preferential access.
Identifying those problems, “putting them out in the open, discussing them openly, will give the public a better understanding of how the health-care system works and where it needs to be fixed up, if it can be, and make it a little more fair and equitable,” Vertes said.
“And perhaps give the public some confidence that at least these issues are being addressed.”