The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor While many residents blame the board and management for the turmoil surrounding the NRHA, Manitoba Opposition Leader Hugh McFadyen says the province should not be let off the hook. "The province has a high degree of responsibility for the current state of the NRHA," McFadyen told The Reminder. "The health minister is supposed to provide direction and oversight to the RHAs and they are funded with money from the taxpayers of Manitoba. The minister can't plead ignorance or hide behind her bureaucrats. The buck stops at her desk." Concerns Last month, in response to concerns from regional residents, Health Minister Theresa Oswald took the uncommon step of ordering an independent operational review of the NRHA. McFadyen welcomes the review, now underway, but is uncertain as to whether it will produce the solutions the public is demanding. "A review is necessary, but we hope that it will result in substantive changes and not just sit on a shelf collecting dust," he said. "Unfortunately, we've seen many 'reviews' undertaken by the NDP government, but most of them are never acted on. For example, the maternity care report in 2005 and the numerous CFS [Child and Family Services] reviews have been conducted yet there has been little to no improvement in the system. "Ideally this review would outline a number of changes that should be made to improve the NRHA. See "Concerns..." on pg 6 Continued from pg 1 "One deficiency that we know of for certain is the lack of community consultation; for example, the NRHA made the decision to move the Flin Flon clinic into the hospital without adequate consultation with the community, a decision that has caused a lot of concern for many patients." Review Heading up the independent NRHA review is a four-person panel consisting of three former health bureaucrats and the dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Manitoba. "The review team members have extensive experience in the medical and administrative aspects of Manitoba's health-care system," Oswald said in a recent news release. Recent weeks have seen a series of concerns regarding the NRHA, and the care it provides, boil over into the public sphere. Among them are alleged misdiagnoses, difficulty getting a doctor's appointment, a perceived lack of judgment in moving the clinic and revoking a physician's hospital privileges, and questions surrounding the role of the NRHA board.
