Ensure hospitals are transparent with consultant fees

On Oct 20 Auditor General Jim McMurter released a report that hospitals in Ontario used money that should have been spent on front line health care services and instead awarded lucrative contracts (sometimes untendered ) to consultants who spent freely on travel and entertainment. Of the 16 (out of 154) hospitals studied he found that some consultants had expense claims such as $700.00 for a hotel room in Singapore, $7800.00 for a personal vacation in Japan, $350.00 for a dinner in Toronto. One consultant even tried to bill a hospital a service fee of $3000.00 when the Auditor asked for receipts.

Mr. Mc Murter found that eight of the sixteen hospitals spent 1.6 Million on lobbyists. He stated that he was surprised that E-Health was not a wake up call for hospitals to tighten up their procedures. The Ontario Hospital Association issued a rare public apology and Minister of Health Deb Matthews said that she was sorry.

Having said this I am not suggesting that lucrative contracts were awarded to consultants at QHC over the last 12 years because I do not know. I do know that the consulting firm Murphy Walsh was hired around 2008 to see where savings could be made. This was at the insistence of the SELHIN who I believe paid part of this fee.

Perhaps it is time for the QHC Board to release to their stakeholders the amount that has been spent on cosultant fees since amalgamation. Hopefully this would not be an onerous task.

The Lobbyist culture will probably not change. Lobbyists will either go underground or be hired by hospitals as staff earning large salaries.

I take some comfort in knowing that the QHC Board has hired Mary Clare Egberts as President and CEO. My observation is that she is a “Straight Shooter”. This was obvious in her recent media interviews when she apologized for the delay in surgeries. Also, she explained in detail the breakdown of the sterilizers at Belleville Hospital and the steps taken to correct the problem.

As I have grave concerns that not enough money is being spent on front line health care services, I for one will be watching in the hope that all hospitals in Ont. are transparent with regard to consultants fees. On a local level, I trust that the Community Advisory Members sitting on the QHC Board will do the same.

Fran Renoy, Picton