Axed Horizon board member says quick decisions were 'delayed, deferred or refused'
CBC
A member of the Horizon Health board fired in a shakeup of health-system leadership is pushing back against Premier Blaine Higgs's argument that the board was creating bureaucratic barriers to reform.
Linda Forestell, who had been an elected member of the Horizon Health Network board of directors for 10 years, says the premier's removal of all voting members last Friday came as a total surprise.
"We collaborated in as many ways as we possibly could," said Forestell.
"We tried over and over again to respond with lightning speed to requests from the Department of Health, only to have them stall at that level or be delayed, deferred or refused."
On Friday, after a man died in a Fredericton emergency room while waiting for care, Higgs replaced the minister of health, fired the Horizon CEO, and replaced the 15 voting members of the Horizon and Vitalité boards with a single trustee each.
Higgs said the dissolution of the boards would remove a "bureaucratic stalemate" and make the system more efficient, but he did not explain how.
"I completely disagree with that," Forestell said Wednesday.
"Our people, at Horizon, participated in the development of the provincial health plan, we helped craft it, we worked together with the task force, we were implementing it. … We incorporated the recommendations of the provincial health plan into Horizon's strategic plan.
"So no, I don't support that at all."
Forestell said she got the news she was being removed from the board through a colleague, who was watching the news conference Higgs called to announce the move.
The colleague's text said: "I really enjoyed working with you."
"My phone started to ring from fellow board members," Forestell said. "So I called [chair] Jeff McAloon and said, 'What's going on?' He said, 'We've been ... revoked.'
"I don't know why. I really and truly don't ... other than there was that unfortunate death in the ER. at the Chalmers Hospital."
John McGarry, a former board member and Horizon CEO who was fired by Shephard last year, agreed that HIggs's decision does not make sense.
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