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Deputy Minister of Health another scapegoat for government inaction May 30 , 2007
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Opposition Leader Gerry Reid says today=s announcement of a new Deputy Minister of Health is nothing more than a smokescreen attempting to deflect from government=s inaction in dealing with disclosing information related to the faulty hormone receptor tests for breast cancer patients. Earlier today, government issued a press release stating that a new Deputy Minister of Health was being appointed. However, nowhere in the release did it explain why the former deputy minister was being removed from the position. Instead, it stated that Mr. Robert Thompson, the current Clerk of the Executive Council, will chair a task force on management of adverse health issues and dissemination of information to the public. This task force will not only identify adverse health events, but more importantly how government responds and communicates information concerning these issues. AToday=s task force announcement is the first admission from this government that they were negligent in not telling the 967 women directly impacted and the general public about these faulty hormone receptor testing results when they were first discovered,@ said Mr. Reid. AThree Ministers of Health knew this information about the faulty testing, yet made the decision to keep it quiet. The premier himself admitted today that he also knew about these results in October 2005, yet sat on the information. AGovernment now realizes that significant mistakes were made in the handling of this file, and have obviously decided to make changes in the province=s civil service. I question why the Deputy Minister of Health was removed from his position, yet three Ministers of Health who also knew this information still remain at the Cabinet table. Why haven=t these individuals been fired? This is another in a long list of deflection tactics by this government to remove attention from themselves. If the premier truly wanted to make substantial changes, he should have held these three ministers accountable and removed them from Cabinet. AIf bringing attention to this issue was of such significance to government, I question why it took a CBC report and public outrage for government to finally take action. The premier and his ministers knew this problem existed since 2005, and understood the magnitude of the problem in November 2006. Why did they wait so long to act? The Minister of Health already stated this information wasn=t released because of litigation concerns and it appears the premier agreed. Unfortunately, government is now using the public service and Eastern Health as scapegoats for their own inaction and bad judgement.@ |
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