Ombudsman

Wednesday July 17, 2013

Wednesday July 17, 2013By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday July 17, 2013

Ombudsman criticizes Ontario government for unfulfilled promises

Patients in Ontario are safer taking a taxi to the hospital than risking their lives in an unregulated “beater” transfer ambulance, says ombudsman André Marin.

“Our investigators have uncovered serious problems with maintenance, staff training, and infection control with these vehicles, which transport hundreds of thousands of Ontarians every year,” Marin said Tuesday.

In his 2012-13 annual report, the provincial watchdog urged the government to take charge of a number of issues, including regulating the non-emergency medical transfer industry before it is too late.

“This is a case where the where the wheels are literally falling off the bus. Some of these vehicles’ parts are flying off them, we have patients falling off gurneys. It’s a question of time before there is a major catastrophe and then we will look back and say, ‘Why did the government not act?’ ” he told a Queen’s Park news conference.

The ombudsman said the coroner has been calling for regulating the non-emergency medical transfer industry since 1995, but Health Minister Deb Matthews told the Star she is still working on it.

“You are safer to take a taxi from your home to the hospital than to take one of these vehicles that are often beaters — they are ambulances that are turned into beaters — and you hire them at greater cost just to ferry you. Just because the 19-year-old drivers have uniforms and they drive cars that look like ambulances you think that it is official and you are safe and you are not,” Marin said. (Source: The Toronto Star)

Thursday March 22, 2012

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday March 22, 2012

Ornge mess sullies Ontario Health Minister’s standing

By the time it’s finished playing itself out, when the schemes have all been unravelled and the books fully opened up and the police investigation concluded, the sorry mess at the air-ambulance service Ornge could wind up costing Ontarians tens of millions of dollars.

The much bigger cost – the one that the province really can’t afford as it tries to wrestle down a $16-billion deficit – might be the loss of an effective health minister.

Deb Matthews will keep her job for the foreseeable future; she’s too well-regarded in government circles to be a sacrificial lamb. But as she stood there on Wednesday, trying to keep her cool during the brutal press conference that followed Auditor-General Jim McCarter’s damning Ornge report, it was hard not to see her as a diminished force.

Two years ago, shortly after being named to her post, Ms. Matthews won a very public fight with pharmacies to find big drug savings that had eluded her predecessors. The communication skills and the iron will that she displayed on that file gave some hope that she’d be able to win other, tougher battles to limit health-care costs.

But with those battles now looming large in the form of nascent contract negotiations with the Ontario Medical Association and a push to restructure the way hospitals are funded, Ms. Matthews has lost much of her political capital.

Until recently seen in the health sector as a force to be reckoned with, she’s now perceived as vulnerable. While there’s a sense that she’s a good minister dealt a bad hand, there’s also an awareness that – having failed to stop Ornge from abusing public dollars – she’s lost her ability to rally the public behind her by presenting herself as a tireless defender of the public interest. (Source: Globe & Mail) 

 

Thursday January 12, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Thursday January 12, 2012

Ombud knocks city council over closed-door meetings

Ontario’s ombudsman has rapped the knuckles of Hamilton councillors for wrongly debating public business behind closed doors — twice in the same day.

In two letters to the city, an ombudsman investigator weighed in on complaints filed by Hamilton Spectator columnist Andrew Dreschel about in-camera discussions by the general issues committee June 27.

In her review, Michelle Bird said councillors “improperly” debated McMaster University’s proposal for a downtown health campus in secret — even after staff warned the discussion should be public.

Bird also said councillors were offside in privately debating how to axe the board of directors for the Hamilton Entertainment and Convention Facilities Inc., noting the discussions “were not about the HECFI board members in their personal capacity.”

The findings should be a “wake-up call” for city politicians, said Councillor Brad Clark, who at the time publicly questioned the decision to go behind closed doors for the McMaster discussion.

“The law says we’re supposed to be as open and transparent as possible. If we go in camera, there needs to be a clear reason to do so,” he said. “For a while (last year), we were being asked to go in camera based on the slimmest of verbal assurances.”

Councillors also went in camera Monday night to discuss the ombudsman’s findings. Solicitor Peter Barkwell told councillors at the meeting he wanted to give legal advice on the matter to council, which can be done privately under the Municipal Act.

Mayor Bob Bratina said Tuesday feedback from the ombudsman on council practices is “always useful,” but added council and staff “may or may not agree” with the latest findings. He wouldn’t offer an opinion.  (Source: Hamilton Spectator)