Health Plans

"The plans you and your deputy minister have established for the organization of the Ministry of Health are unsound and reflect a lack of confidence in my leadership on your part."
Dr. Penny Ballem, June 22, 2006

Bombshells like that are why a day can be an eternity in politics. Premier Campbell reacted to the resignation of the Deputy Minister of Health by saying that he didn't know what she was referring to. Since Ballem resigned effective immediately, thereby costing her what might have been a substantial severance package, we can hope that she will help the Premier by clarifying the points of disagreement.

In February's Throne Speech, the Campbell government kicked off the first full legislative session since the May 2005 election with emphasis on real dialogue aimed at improving and transforming our health care system. Other than a quick trip to Europe that the Premier took with his brother in-law, while Ballem and the Minister of Health remained home, there has been absolutely nothing out of the Campbell government by way of follow-up on that commitment. If the government has secret plans which so offended the Deputy Minister that she immediately resigned, the public has a right to know and to be involved in the discussion of the details. Remember the Throne Speech said: "British Columbia will define and enshrine in provincial law the five principles of the Canada Health Act, and it will add to those a sixth - the principle of sustainability." That is an enormously broad agenda that could see an end to Medicare as we know it. Combined with Ballem's resignation, it is urgent that the government reveal its plans long before they consider implementing them.

It might not be an accident that Ballem chose to make her resignation on the same day the Premier was in Surrey announcing a hospital without beds, a day patient facility. That timing could be an accident, or one of the reason's behind the resignation, or an attempt to rain on the Premier's parade by bumping his announcement from the top of the news. It had to be an accident that the resignation came on the same day that Ipsos-Reid released its second quarter poll on voting intentions showing the Campbell Liberals at 51% support compared to the NDP's 35% (in the May 2005 election the Liberals finished with 45.8%, the NDP with 41.5%). If the latest polling numbers were carried into a general election, the NDP caucus would again be reduced to single digits with over two dozen of its members being defeated; however, the next election is May 12, 2009, almost three years away. In the first year of its second term, the Campbell government backed away from anything that smelled of controversy. That's unlikely to happen on secret plans to change health care. It is essential that the NDP enter the upcoming debate with an approach that champions the public interest by putting patients ahead of the interests of those whose incomes depend on the health system. Those interests need not always conflict with the best interests of patients, but it should always be clear whose interests are motivating any policy or position.