A Petition To Our Ontario Government – Let’s Demand To Know How Much Of Our Hosptial Care Dollars Are Being Sucked Up In Debbie Sevenpifer’s Severance Package

Since Debbie Sevenpifer was ousted from her job this January 18 as Niagara Health System’s president and CEO, Niagara At Large has received one question more than any other from our readers.

‘How much of our money – and it is our money – has the NHS’s board of trustees agreed to pay Sevenpifer in any severance package?’

 

We know that Sevenpifer was paid more than $340,000 a year in salary and benefits for being the top administrator at an NHS responsible for managing a majority of the hospital services in across the Niagara, Ontario region. That is more than $20,000 more a year than Canada’s prime minister is paid more than $120,000 more than Ontario’s premier receives in compensation.

Yet we are being told by members of NHS’s board that Sevenpifer’s severance pay may never be made public.
Niagara At Large believes that anything less than full disclosure of the amount of taxpayers’money paid out to Sevenpifer in the way of a severance or buyout package is outrageous –especially at time when the NHS has closed emergency rooms and acute care beds at hospitals in the region’s south end, and may be forced to make further cuts to frontline services in the wake of recent news that it is facing a possible $7 million operating deficit in the coming fiscal year.

Therefore, we are posting a petition (on this site/special page on our facebook????) to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and the province’s Health Minister Deb Matthews to order the NHS board to fully disclose the severance package it either has or is still in the process of negotiating with former NHS CEO Debbie Sevenpifer.

We also invite as many residents as possible in other regions of Ontario to sign this petition because this is your tax money to and a refusal to disclose this severance deal could be used as more justification for shutting the public out of such deals across this province for years to come.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty can be contacted by email by clicking on       Premier’s feedback form at Premier’s feedback form   or by contacting him at his Ottawa constituency office at  dmcguinty.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org . Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews can be reached at  dmatthews.mpp@liberal.ola.org .  We also ask you to forward your demand for full disclosure of Sevenpifer’s severance package to Niagara’s two provincial Liberal representatives, St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley at  jbradley.mpp@liberal.ola.org and Niagara Falls MPP Kim Craitor is kcraitor.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org .
.Please join Niagara At Large in petitioning Premier McGuinty and his government for access to this information and visit NAL’s petition on our Facebook site at http://www.facebook.com/notes/niagara-at-large/health-transparency-in-niagara-is-important/173580062686373 where you can connect with NAL friends from this and other regions across the province.

Let’s all work to get a movement together online to obtain the dollars-and-cents- facts on a severance package involving our money at a time when ever cent of that money should be going to front-line health care in our communities.

(We encourage you to visit Niagara At Large at http://www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to residents in our greater Niagara region.)