[溫哥華本地新聞] BC Liberals thwarting public consultation process on Burnaby Hospital: NDP Community, obtained, process, public, health

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BC Liberals thwarting public consultation process on Burnaby Hospital: NDP

The Burnaby Hospital Community Consultation Committee is being orchestrated behind the scenes: Mike Farnworth
VICTORIA — A months-long process to consult the public on the future expansion of Burnaby Hospital is being manipulated by the “sleazy tactics” of B.C. Liberal Party operatives, New Democratic Party health critic Mike Farnworth said Wednesday.
Farnworth said emails obtained by the NDP show the Burnaby Hospital Community Consultation Committee — which has conducted several public meetings on the future of Burnaby Hospital, and holds itself out to be impartial — is being orchestrated behind the scenes by B.C. Liberals to make the government look good.
The committee was formed after an outbreak of C. difficile at the hospital earlier this year, and emails appear to show an effort is underway to shift blame away from the government and onto the Fraser Health Authority, which operates Burnaby Hospital.
“It’s not about what the public really wants, it’s not about listening to what people really want. It’s about controlling things and trying to avoid damage to a discredited government,” Farnworth said Wednesday.
Emails provided to The Vancouver Sun by the NDP show that while the committee said it began working co-operatively with Fraser Health on the development plans for Burnaby Hospital, the committee now appears set to hold the health authority responsible for allowing the people of Burnaby to “suffer.”
Formed in April by Burnaby-Lougheed Liberal MLA Harry Bloy, the 12-member committee said it would assess community health care needs, review with staff how to improve health care outcomes, and gather information from employers, industry professionals, unions and community associations.
In a press release at the time, the committee also said it would “work co-operatively with Fraser Health” through a master planning process for Burnaby Hospital.
The announcement came the same day Fraser Health announced it was beginning a “high-level master-planning process for Burnaby Hospital to develop a clear vision for the expansion, improvement and delivery of health services at Burnaby Hospital.”
Emails provided to The Sun show the committee’s citizen chair — Pamela Gardner, who has served as a B.C. Liberal Party riding president in Burnaby-Edmonds — has been in contact with key party insiders about the review.
In one email, Gardner tells party operatives the committee’s final report will be written by Sonja Sanguinetti, “a retired lawyer and former president of the B.C. Liberal Party.”
In another, she said Sanguinetti will say in the final report that “the speakers have commented on a need for a new building but a major theme has been the lack of resources and how (Burnaby Hospital) has been the worse (sic) resourced hospital in Fraser Health.
“She feels this isn’t a reflection on the Liberal government but more on the Chair of Fraser Health. The government hires someone and has to trust they will do an equitable job,” Gardner continued.
“It’s not the Liberals that force and continue to allow the citizens of Burnaby to suffer.”
That email was sent to Bloy’s personal account, to the B.C. Liberal Party’s director of field operations Mark Robertson, and to Brian Bonney, who for five years worked as the party’s director of operations.
Bonney also ran Bloy’s first provincial election campaign, and now works within government as a communications director.
In the same email, Gardner also asked if she should send the final report “to you people first,” adding the committee would also like to review it before it is sent to Minister of Health Margaret MacDiarmid.
Farnworth called the emails “sleazy beyond belief.”
“This whole report and committee came about because of a tragic situation at Burnaby Hospital. The C. difficile outbreak, the public outcry over that, the deaths that were linked to that outbreak,” he said.
“This should have been done by Fraser Health, it should have been done independently and I think what these emails show is the sheer manipulation of it and I think the report is suspect and useless,” he added.
“The government set this up for a reason and that’s what this is all about. They told the public this is to gather your input to hear what you have to say. From what you can see from the emails it’s anything but that.”
Reached on his cellphone Wednesday, Bloy said he was not immediately familiar with the emails and wanted to review them before commenting.
“I’ll look them up and I’ll get back to you,” he said, though at press time had not yet called back.
Gardner could not be reached for comment.
In an email, Fraser Health spokesman Roy Thorpe-Dorward wrote that the committee was struck by Bloy and another Liberal MLA, and that it “is not a Fraser Health-led committee.”
“Fraser Health is currently reviewing a range of scenarios for the expansion of services and capacity at Burnaby Hospital. These scenarios are based on an exhaustive review of current conditions on the site and demographic projections for Burnaby and its surrounding communities,” he said.
“Once we receive the report from the citizens’ committee, we will be able to finalize Fraser Health’s report and submit to the Ministry of Health for consideration.”

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Among the emails provided to The Sun was one sent to MacDiarmid at her personal email address, as well as to the personal email of MacDiarmid’s direct political aide. In that note, Gardner said she thinks it’s positive for the B.C. Liberals that NDP MLAs have not been involved in the consultation process.

“I really shake my head that both (NDP leader Adrian) Dix and (NDP MLA for Burnaby-Deer Lake Kathy) Corrigan have not chosen to participate,” Gardner wrote.

“I’m obviously very pleased as politically it’s a great piece for you people. I just question their forethought,” she wrote, adding that both are in ridings where constituents use the hospital.

Another email appears to show that Jim Favaro — a lobbyist who, according to provincial records, last month met MacDiarmid on behalf of drug company Amgen — has account access to delete public comments from the committee’s Facebook page.

In an interview, MacDiarmid said she did not know why B.C. Liberal Party operatives were being emailed as part of the committee’s work.

“I honestly don’t know the answer to that question, why they were included in emails,” she said.

MacDiarmid added that receiving work-related emails on her personal account — where they cannot be accessed by requests under the Freedom of Information Act — was not appropriate.

“There isn’t a good reason for it. I normally do government work from my government email account and it was probably me being lazy more than anything else,” she said.

“We in future will be using our government email accounts. There’s just not a good reason for it.”

On the work of the committee, MacDiarmid said its report will form only a part of the overall process.

“The master planning process is going to happen from the Fraser Health Authority, but this group had a number of different meetings with stakeholders and is going to write a report that is going to feed into that Fraser process,” she said.

“I’m not aware that this committee got any direction as to how they should write their report or develop their report or come up with their report,” she added.

“I think it’s important to note the process they went through – at least the (committee) meeting I saw – was a very open meeting where all points of view were listened to and notes were being taken,” she said.

“It didn’t strike me as a political meeting at all.”

Mike Old, communications director of the Hospital Employees’ Union, which has about 1,100 members working at Burnaby General, said: “It`s very disappointing that the government`s response to the challenges facing Burnaby General has been so partisan and so clearly intended to deflect blame from the B.C. Liberals and their policies.

“Many of the problems that led to the high rates of superbug infections at Burnaby general – like the lack of cleaning staff and supplies, and too few infection control personnel -- can be directly connected to a lack of funding from the province and other policies like the privatization of hospital support services.

“The citizens of Burnaby, the patients at that hospital, and the staff who are trying to deliver good care under difficult conditions are poorly served by what looks to be an exercise in political deflection.”

Earlier this year, eight senior physicians raised serious concerns about the risk of patients contracting C. difficile at Burnaby Hospital, saying there had been 473 serious cases of C. difficile there from 2009 to mid-2011, and 84 associated deaths.

A Jan. 9 letter to the head of Fraser Health from members of the hospital’s infection control committee said they would characterize current infection control management at the hospital “at best, as a serious hazard to the patient population.”

The doctors also said that for more than the last two years, rates of the infection at the hospital had ranged between two to three times the provincial and national averages.

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Burnaby General Hospital's rate of C. difficile infection is two to three times the national average, including 84 deaths between 2009 and mid-2011.


Eight senior physicians are ringing alarm bells about the risk of contracting C difficile at Burnaby General Hospital, saying 84 patients have died there as a result of the infection within two and a half years.