The NDP’s Health critic says internal emails show a supposedly unbiased government appointed committee looking into problems at Burnaby hospital is anything but, “I think what this committee has done is really stunk up the process around Burnaby hospital.”Mike Farnworth says looking over the emails there were a number of immediate alarm bells.
“There is a number of things such as you know ‘should we run it by you guys first before we get it over to Fraser Health or even to the minister’ ‘lets take this out it doesn’t sound so good’ its….its…when you see them all together…its..its just….you know..its the type of stuff that makes people really cynical about politics.”
Farnworth says the committee is stacked with Liberal insiders.
“The government put this committee together and said it was unbiased and what we are seeing from these emails is that it was anything but unbiased it was coordinated by Liberal operatives they used private emails as opposed to government emails I mean this is a taxpayer funded project and you are using private emails? The only reason you do that is because you are trying to hide things.”
While the committee’s final report has yet to be tabled Farnworth says it isn’t worth the paper it is written on.
“The whole report has been compromised…corrupted.”
The Hospital Employees union is disappointed over what appears to be political interference in the committee.
But spokesperson Mike Old says since a C-Difficile outbreak at the hospital there have been improvements.
“The C-Diff situation at Burnaby General has improved a lot over the last few years but our members are always working very hard often under short staffing conditions to try and provide good care at the hospital it is always a challenge and you know we need real solutions here not exercises in political deflection.”
Old says it appears now that the government committee is bent on directing attention away from the real cause of the problems.
“You know many of the problems that led to the high rates of superbug infections over the last few years at Burnaby General like the lack of cleaning staff and supplies and too few infection control staff can be directly connected to a lack of funding from the province and other policies like the privatization of support services.
However Health Minister Margaret MacDiarmid had a different take on the situation.
“The committee that we are talking about started up with the two BC Liberal MLA’s in Burnaby Harry Bloy and Richard Lee and they wanted to go out and spend some time consulting with stakeholders about the future of the Burnaby hospital.”
MacDiarmid admits other BC Liberals have become involved.
“There have been some political supporters that have been involved I think that there are some BC Liberals out there in Burnaby and they really feel strongly about there hospital and they want to see a great new development.”
When asked about the whether or not some of the inferences in the emails are appropriate MacDiarmid said.
“I certainly understand why people are concerned but I think it is very important though to remember what this is all about this is two BC Liberal MLA’s from the riding who wanted to go out and consult and they do have some supporters that are involved in it but they are not making the decisions or calling the shots on the redevelopment of the Burnaby hospital.”
When it was pointed out it sounds like from her perspective this appears to be almost an individual effort from two BC Liberals MLA’s who appear to have taken the job on themselves when the NDP say this is actually a government appointed committee using taxpayer dollars, MacDiarmid said.
“I do have to look into this before I can say this with 100% certainty but when this committee started up I was not the Minister of Health but I do however remember hearing former Health minister Mike De Jong talking about this and he couldn’t really understand why the NDP MLA’s in Burnaby were being so critical he said this is exactly what I would expect local MLA’s to do to go out and consult with their constituents and find out what is really important to people who live in Burnaby when we are going to redevelop the hospital.”
When pressed on taxpayer money being used on the committee, several hundred thousand dollars according to the NDP, MacDiarmid said.
“I am not aware that there has been funding that has gone towards this.”
MacDiarmid is also not willing to just throw the committee’s final report away despite the NDP saying it is already “corrupted.”
“It is interesting how often we find the NDP are judging things before they have the actual evidence in front of them they have done that with Enbridge and they appear to be doing it here and as I said i certainly understand why people are concerned but I think it would be a really good idea for MLA Farnworth and others to have a look at the report before they dismiss it don’t forget that hundreds of people in Burnaby have had input into this.”
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