Jeff Beairsto became vice-chair of Horizon Health Network’s board in 2021, but he was abruptly fired, alongside 29 other board members, in 2022 following the death of a patient in the waiting room of the Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital emergency department.
In fact, Premier Blaine Higgs wiped both boards clean — Horizon and Vitalite — and dismissed then-CEO and president Dr. John Dornan.
But now Beairsto worries about the recent decision to eliminate the elected positions on both RHA boards.
The boards had barely begun their mandate when they were fired, Beairsto said, adding they were aware of the enormous pressure the system was under and the ever-changing COVID-19 pandemic.
He explained that some board members, who had been re-elected or re-appointed, helped newer ones understand the issues that impacted the governance of both health authorities well.
“There is a lot to understand to get us up to speed with longstanding issues they’d be working on for years to try and improve,” he said. “But at the time, very much COVID and COVID-related issues and the change of leadership from an outgoing CEO to a new CEO.”
Beairsto said the board does not have much to do with the day-to-day operations of the hospitals, and has no control over the appointment or dismissal of the CEO.
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But he said it had an important role of governance that ensured transparency and accountability, which now he is worried might disappear.
No more elected members
On May 9, the Higgs government announced it would be eliminating the elected positions from the regional health authorities.
“An Act Respecting the Regional Health Authorities would create new boards with up to seven voting members, each appointed by the minister,” the announcement said.
Beairsto said when he was appointed, he sort of knew “he served at the pleasure of the minister” with respect to his dismissal, but the dismissal of members democratically elected felt wrong.
“We certainly understood there would be blame, but I think it’s fair to say that we didn’t think it would be the dismissal of the board nor the dismissal of Dr. Dornan,” he said. “I was very much disappointed about this dissolution of the board in general because of it comprised of roughly 50-50 elected members.”
He said they were the members chosen by the public to help guide governance.
“I was upset about that, for them — and more to the point, the voters who elected them throughout the province — that those votes, the voices related to that were just taken away,” he said in an interview. “I thought that was maybe a step too far.”
Now, as Beairsto reflects, he turns his concerns to the future of how those boards might operate with no democratically-elected members.
“Drastic and problematic and I think emblematic of this government’s sort of disdain for public commentary and community input,” he said. “Since the boards dissolved, there hasn’t been quarterly board meetings to which the public are invited, and to which the press are invited, and so the governance of Horizon and Vitalite has happened in a non-transparent way since July of 2022 and that’s unfortunate,”
‘Attack on democratic management of health care’
His hope is the government isn’t using this as an opportunity to reduce the transparency and accountability to New Brunswickers and the decisions governing health care.
“To move forward with a new board that has no elected officials on it at all again is an extraordinary measure they shouldn’t do,” he said. “I do fear a board of only appointees will be more likely to feel beholden to serve the government rather than the public’s need.”
The New Brunswick Health Coalition has similar concerns.
Bernadette Landry, with the coalition, called it a “attack on the democratic management of our health-care system.” The groups calls for them to halt that decision, and allow the CEO to also be elected.
She said the coalition also worries if these are all appointed members, whether the government will use it to further a privatization agenda.
“This is terrible,” she said. “It’s really Higgs and his clique who are going to be controlling the whole health-care system in New Brunswick while leaving the population with absolutely nothing to say.”
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