A Commentary by Doug Draper
This past July 28, Niagara At Large published St. Catharines, Ontario resident Steve McMullen’s account of his family’s life and death struggle with a C. difficile outbreak that has claimed the lives of more than two dozen area residents over the past few months in hospitals managed by the Niagara Health System.
Maria McMullen, still suffering from the deadly C. diff superbug in a St. Catharines hospital. NAL published this photo only a week ago, but it remains one for a family in our region that puts a human face on this superbug disaster.
This August 3, Mike Haines, a senior assistant to Welland MPP Peter Kormos, wrote an open letter to Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews referring specifically to the ordeal Marion McMullen and her family is facing, and demanding to know when her ministry “is going to start taking this (the C. difficile outbreak) seriously and make a concerted effort to ensure the proper care of people who have nowhere to turn but the Niagara Health System.”
In the letter to Matthews, Haines stressed that “people are now living in fear of taking their loved ones to any Niagara Health System hospital for fear they may never leave again. … Some people are going to Hamilton hospitals in desperation but are being turned away.”
Someone named Brady Wood, some new public relations flak for the NHS, a hospital administration that – get this – recently announced it wants to improve communications and restore public confidence in its services, got back to Haines to say that he has “been involved in this (Marion McMullen’s) case and our (NHS) leadership has been dealing directly with this patient to resolve concerns. … She (Marion McMullen) has indicated to us that she has not authorized her son (Steve) to advocate on her behalf and asked us to deal directly with her concerns. I believe we are resolving the concerns to her satisfaction.”
First of all, what is a P.R. spin doctor doing getting directly involved, as he suggests, in a life and death situation for this family. Shouldn’t that be the pirvue of front-line medical staff? And who gives a flying fig what he has to say about this critical case anyway?
Excuse some of us, Mr Wood, if we don’t it when you say, on behalf of whoever else in on the NHS’s board and administration that Marion McMullen’s concerns are being looked after “to her satisfaction.”
Mike Haines, to his credit and the constituency office of Peter Kormos that he works for, took the time this August 4 to get back to Steve McMullen and was even able to touch bases with his mother Marion in her hospital bed. What he discovered from both of them is that Marion has given Steve full consent to tell her story as she suffers with this deadly infection.
In other words, Wood’s lines represent the usual spin we’ve been getting from the Niagara Health System for the better part of the past decade. And if you believe him, you might also believe that building the only new hospital complex in west St. Catharines, for which Niagara, Ontario is likely to get provincial approval for decades to come, is a great place to put a super, acute-care hospital that is accessible for all Niagara residents.
If Wood is some example, as he describes himself as an “interim communications lead for NHS,” of the new effort the NHS is launching to improve relations with the public, then maybe he ought to get out of town now. According to reports, he has been borrowed from St. Joseph’s Hospital in Hamilton to assist the NHS in its new P.R. effort, and I don’t have time to study how much communications nonsense is going on around that hospital, but maybe he ought to think about packing it in now.
If he and others are going to try to spin-doctor crap to the office of Peter Kormos, the justice critic, and labour and community safety and correctional services critic for the Ontario NDP, then what kind of garbage are the rest of us going to get from the NHS’s new communications plan.
We’d be better off if the money the NHS is spending on “communications” was invested in disinfectants for the hospitals.
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You really have to hand it to the NHS: it has a positive genius for creating a public relations nightmare and then making it worse.
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The tide has turned. After two years of the NHS being the bully on the block, the community has gone on the offense. Media scrutiny has exposed the tall tales and patient advocates feel safe now in speaking out without fear of retribution.
In a local paper survey 90% of the respondents encouraged the proposed public relations guru Flynn to save his time and our money. What we do need are clean hospitals, adequate staffing and medical beds and a review and revisel of the disasterous HIP Plan, Learn your lesson. A paper plan does not always work in the real world.
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Corporations et.al want to profit from health care, so they spend their money on P.R s***, instead of dealing with the real issues and trying to improve them.
For profit health systems nurture bloated bureaucracies.
Kudos to Mike Haines.
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After a decade, one has to wonder: what will it take for the government to understand that the NHS is not working for the people of Niagara? It is time to undertake an independent investigation to determine what has gone wrong since the Harris government created the NHS. Forget an “independent review” of parts of the Hospital Improvement Plan, with the NHS and the LHIN controlling terms of reference and the selection of the reviewer. If the government is serious about addressing the health and hospital needs of the residents of Niagara, it should just appoint the independent investigator or supervisor to start from scratch. Anything less is unacceptable.
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The same old BS my mother went into the Cambridge Hospital for a simple biopsy that was to be day surgery. The doctor was running late and after a six hour wait they decided to keep my mother overnight. Ten days later my mother was rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with meningitis, she died two weeks later. She had no underlying health issues but because she was 93 they did not care.
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In 1965 my body took one hell of a beating through a car accident, crushed pelvis broken femur and tibia, numerous sever lacerations to the shoulder, left leg, forehead and and ruptured main artery to the right leg.
The Initial surgery was performed in Quebec (Thank God) and then in Chedoke Rehabilitation hospital in Hamilton where eventually the right hip was replaced Now in September the left hip needs to be replaced and it will be done in Hamilton not in Niagara, for I will put up with the pain rather than risk my life in any NHS controlled location.That’s how much faith and trust I have for these administrative (‘Corporate cultured’ – acting NHS CEO Sue Matthews’ words) people.
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Same old BS – Just a new BS’er
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I’m wondering just what would change if Deb Matthews, Brady Wood or any of the overpaid red tape jockeys in the NHS had no choice but to receive extended care in an NHS facility? Probably bring in their own cleaning staff. Just saying.
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Good comment Stasia but don’t you know that for medical care the briefcase crowd and politicos go to the States or Toronto to have their needs seen to. They are too aware of the perils the NHS have to offer them.
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@Wayne Redekop — While I applaud Niagara Regional Council for pushing the Minister of Health into agreeing to an “evaluation” of the HIP, I agree that the deck is stacked against the likelihood of this resulting in any real change. Neither the LHIN nor the NHS is committed to the review process, which will drag on indefinitely until well after the election. I do worry, however, that any investigator/supervisor appointed by this government is going to be far more committed to the status quo than to Niagara’s genuine healthcare needs. Healthcare in Ontario is in thrall to highly-paid bureaucrats — and they are going to pose a problem for the next government, too.
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The NHS has lied to us from the beginning. Why would anyone think it would be different now? Liars lie. This would seem to be the first statement I have read from Mr. Wood and he has started his career at the NHS with a lie. Is anyone who has followed this surprised?
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