Dr. Deena Hinshaw, ousted from Alberta, moves to job with B.C. public health leaders

The former chief medical officer removed from her post in Alberta has taken a new job with B.C.'s public health leadership team, the westernmost province announced Wednesday.

Dr. Deena Hinshaw, who became the face of Alberta's public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic, will work as B.C.'s deputy provincial health officer on a six-month contract.

"To help strengthen B.C.'s preparedness and response to present and future public health emergencies, I am pleased to share new addi‐ tions to our public health leadership team at the Office of the PHO," B.C. Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry wrote in a statement.

As well as Hinshaw, B.C. has also hired Dr. Andrew Larder on "temporary assign‐ ment" for several months. Larder previously worked as a medical health officer for both Fraser and Interior Health.

"I feel very fortunate to work alongside such talented and dedicated public health experts and I know their ex‐ pertise will be a great assis‐ tance as we emerge from the pandemic and continue to ad‐ dress the many public health challenges facing the province," said Henry.

Hinshaw was replaced as Alberta's top health official in November. The province's new premier, Danielle Smith, announced during her first days in office that she would remove Hinshaw and recruit a new team of advisers in public health who consider COVID-19 an endemic disease.

Smith has made it clear that she blames both Hin‐ shaw and Alberta Health Ser‐ vices for failing to deliver the best advice and care for Alber‐ tans as the hospital system came close to buckling in suc‐ cessive waves of the COVID19 pandemic.

"A lot of the bad decisions were made by Alberta Health Services on the basis of bad advice from the chief medical officer of health," Smith told reporters on Oct. 22.

Hinshaw had served as Al‐ berta's chief medical health officer for more than three years. She had previously worked in public health since 2010.

WATCH | B.C. health minister welcomes Dr. Deena Hinshaw to B.C.:

Like Henry, Hinshaw be‐ came a familiar figure across the province through hun‐ dreds of regularly-sched‐ uled COVID-19 updates in the early years of the pandemic.

She was widely commend‐ ed during the early months of the pandemic for a calm, mea‐ sured approach, but faced a series of controversies in 2021 — including an admission with former premier Jason Kenney that the province lift‐ ed restrictions too quickly in the summer and for receiving a bonus worth $228,000 that year.

On Wednesday, B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix said he was "delighted" to see Hin‐ shaw move west and respect‐ ed the work she did during the height of the pandemic.

"Alberta had its own chal‐ lenges which ... I was able to observe myself," he said dur‐ ing a news conference.

"But I think this is an out‐ standing public health doctor, an exceptional leader, some‐ one who was under enor‐ mous scrutiny of a kind I don't think she would've ex‐ pected — or anyone would've expected. She did an excep‐ tional job," he continued.

"I can't imagine why you wouldn't want to hire an out‐ standing public health doctor like Dr. Hinshaw."