Making the ludicrous sound sane

Feb 13, 2008

Have you ever wondered how people get the title of CEO?

Perhaps we should look no further for a defining characteristic than the statement this week from North Simcoe LHIN CEO Jean Trimnell.

Seems you just have to take the most ludicrous rationalization and make it sound like the sanest course of action.

If there is anything to be taken from the interview with Trimnell about the loss of the after-hours Urgent Care Clinic (UCC), it is that she has mastered this skill.

Trimnell said that it is not her LHIN or Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare that is cutting service at the Burk’s Falls and District Health Centre (BFDHC). Instead, she contends it will be the doctors themselves who will decide whether or not there will be an evening and weekend UCC for the area’s residents.

Let’s see.

Sometime ago the province ended the special line funding that kept doctors at the BFDHC after 5 p.m. and the days that fall between Friday and Monday. Somehow the Huntsville Hospital, which administered the BFDHC, found the cash to keep the doctors there. Then the MAHC board kept it open, again digging for cash they didn’t have. And now the LHIN is applying pressure to end that funding. In the face of its $2 million deficit the MAHC says it is now going to do that before some boogeyman comes in and hacks local healthcare pell-mell in the name of the bottom-line.

It’s really not that complicated: funding was cut, hospital board made up funding, hospital board now being told to cut it or else.

And when after-hours service ends at the BFDHC it’s all the doctors’ fault.

You can see how these CEOs make the big bucks.

The doctors that practise out of the BFDHC and regularly man the UCC say that under their current contract they won’t make a cent for working beyond normal business hours – that under their contract they can’t even bill fees for service for evening and weekend shifts.

So, as not to come out as the bad guys in Trimnell’s universe, the doctors are losing their pay for the after-hours UCC, but the service is not being cut. It’s the doctors’ decision.

Just like it is the phone or electrical companies’ decision to cut off service when we stop paying the bill.

Imagine going into work and the boss gathers all your coworkers around and announces that he’s not laying-off the lot of you – he’s just not going to pay you anymore. Then the next day, when you’re at home going through the want ads, the same boss calls you up and says you’re fired for being late.

The real bottomline, outside of Trimnell’s twilight zone, is that the provincial government has been paying, whether through the Huntsville Hospital board or the MAHC board for a service and that is about to come to a stop.

This is a cut to our local health-care services, not a realignment, adjustment, downsizing or whatever other corporate-speak label they want to give it.

Currently residents have excellent access to doctors on evenings and weekends and unless something changes in six weeks time that is going end. This is regardless of whoever gets stuck with the blame when families start spending hours on end waiting in emergency rooms a long drive from home.

One might think that responsibility is an important trait for a CEO. Trimnell’s attempt to point fingers at our local doctors seems to illustrate it is not even a prerequisite.