The leadership of British Columbia’s biggest health authority is facing heat amid growing pressure on the region’s health-care system.
The Fraser Health Authority’s board of directors held a public meeting Wednesday, a week after announcing it was parting ways with former CEO Dr. Victoria Lee.
That was followed by two overnight closures at the Delta Hospital’s emergency room.
Last September, emergency room doctors at the region’s busiest hospital, Surrey Memorial, penned a blistering letter to Lee describing deteriorating conditions at the facility.
The opposition BC Conservatives say problems in the health authority start at the top — with the board’s chair.
“The fact is you have a political appointee there who has no health care experience in Jim Sinclair, that has overseen some of the worst health care outcomes we’ve ever seen for Fraser Health,” Surrey-White Rock MLA Trevor Halford said.
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“How he still has that position befuddles me, because he should have been let go a long time ago.”
The situation has also drawn the ire of Delta’s city council, which voted on Monday to write to the province with its frustrations about the situation and to call a representative from Fraser Health before council.
“Keeping hospitals open, keeping emergency rooms open is a basic, fundamental role of government and if we can’t do that, we’ve got much larger systemic issues,” Delta Coun. Dylan Kruger told Global News at the time.
On Wednesday, Sinclair responded to criticism, saying the health authority has “done a really good job” trying to fill frequent physician and nurse shortages, not just at Delta’s hospital but across the region.
However, he said he couldn’t promise there wouldn’t be more ER closures down the road.
“I am hopeful we won’t have that problem, that Delta is a blip and we will be able to deal with that going forward — but there are some issues that need to be dealt with,” Sinclair said.
“I am optimistic that we will continue to have emergency rooms open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and I can promise here today that we are going to be committed to making that happen.”
He said the long-term solution involves working with both communities and the province to recruit and retain more doctors, including to provide affordable housing and to get foreign-trained workers accredited more quickly.
Sinclair also responded to criticism of the short notice given on emergency room closures.
“We have tried to leave the announcement of the closures as late as possible because we have in many cases found somebody late in the day to keep it open, and we don’t want to tell people it’s closed when we actually keep it open,” he said.
“We are looking at our communication strategy going forward, how can we spread the word better.”
As for Lee’s departure, Sinclair described it as a “mutual agreement,” adding it was time for “new ideas and a new view of the future,” while adding she did a “good job” in her seven years as CEO.
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