Eagle was on the plank, walking
Chris Eagle’s departure as the superboard CEO surprised few at Alberta Health Services, where word was already out that the Eagle had crash-landed.
His looming fate was obvious last Tuesday when Health Minister Fred Horne ordered him to apologize for another mess created by homecare reform, the withdrawal of a big provider from its contract.
Eagle promptly told a news conference he was sorry — so often, and so abjectly, that he sounded more like a bedraggled staffer than the boss of a mammoth health system.
In a sure sign of his isolation, Eagle was out there all alone, with none of the usual backup from his own vice-presidents (they’re mostly gone now, too) or a smiling AHS board boss.
Eagle was already on the plank, walking.
On Thursday, he finally splashed into the ex-CEO pool. There he joins Stephen Duckett, the predecessor who left after telling reporters he was eating a cookie during questioning about emergency waits.
John Cowell, the new AHS board administrator, didn’t do much for the Eagle ego when he praised the CEO’s dedication but also said he agreed with the departure.
The decision was his and Eagle’s, he said, with no orders from the health minister. Eagle insists he alone made the call — and why wouldn’t he, with the government acting like his personal proctologist.
Health care is now ruled by a supremely powerful troika: Horne, deputy health minister Janet Davidson, and Cowell, who replaced her as AHS administrator after she moved into the top government job.
AHS gets a new acting president and CEO, Duncan Campbell, who will know exactly whose calls to take if he’s half as smart as people say he is.
There is no longer the slightest pretence of AHS independence from government. That’s been obvious since Horne’s firing of the entire appointed board in June, and the immediate concentration of power.
Eagle, who is justly admired by many people at AHS, had the misfortune to be caught between the government and that fired board.
Led by the idealistic chairman Stephen Lockwood, it embarked on the supreme Alberta delusion — the belief that if the government appoints you to something this big, you’re actually allowed to run it, and even quarrel with the minister.
Just as the board crisis erupted, serious AHS management failures in home care were becoming obvious. It became difficult to see how Eagle could stay, or would even want to.
Always a dedicated leader, he oversaw the opening of the South Health Campus and many improvements in specific service areas. He certainly deserves sympathy and a measure of credit.
He won’t be needing alms, though. His departure deal is a thing of beauty, almost hilariously contrived to elude another round of public rage over severance packages.
Eagle ceases to be CEO, and he appears to have no responsibilities at this moment, but he will be paid his full CEO compensation — a base salary of $580,000 — until Oct. 20, 2014.
During that year, Cowell said, Eagle will take about eight weeks of banked vacation time and perhaps a three-month sabbatical.
He won’t be “off the hook,” Cowell added. He wants Eagle involved in projects for the other seven months, perhaps involving patient safety.
But there’s no severance. Cowell repeated that about four times in case anybody missed it. He also claimed, in a genuine health care knee-slapper, that all this helps the stability of the system. When stability comes with constant departures, hirings and upheavals, what on earth would they call chaos?