Brigitte McDonough, former director of clinical care, was among senior managers who took turns taking nightly calls at the University of Alberta Hospital. She said she regularly received calls from Weatherill’s office — about one every two months — telling them that a VIP, at times a donor to the hospital system, was in the hospital and asked the manager to check on the patient’s status, and keep tabs on their progress through the system and report back, said McDonough.
Similar “heads up” calls were made to senior managers at the Catholic hospital then funded by Capital Health, the inquiry also heard.
In one case, McDonough said she ordered an emergency room nurse to find a doctor to look at a patient whose spouse had gone to Weatherill’s office to complain that the patient had been in pain for too long — though in that case, she characterized her actions as responding to a “patient complaint.’’
McDonough said she, as well as front-line staff, found the VIP courtesy calls “annoying.” But everyone complied “graciously” because that was “the culture” at Capital Health.
When inquiry head Justice John Vertes asked McDonough to define the culture at Capital Health, McDonough replied: “To me it was very hierarchical.”
“When Sheila wanted something, you jumped,” she testified.
McDonough also stressed that despite the “keep tabs” calls from Weatherill’s office, the VIP patients did not receive special care.
“Direct care was not affected — maybe they would get an extra smile,” said McDonough.
Health care ethics require that all patients be treated the same and “the front-line staff felt adamant about that,” she said.
Earlier, Gordon Self, a senior manager at the Catholic hospital system, said people in his system also received calls from Capital Health giving them a “heads up” that a prominent person was in their system — though there was no order for special treatment.
Self, a vice-president at former Caritas Health, now called Covenant Health, said medical staff and managers felt so uneasy about those calls they spent a year devising an ethics policy on how to handle them and it reinforced the need for equal treatment for all patients.
Self could not recall the names of any VIPs brought to the attention of Caritas officials.
McDonough recalled one night the VIP was a friend of an MLA, but she provided no names.
Justice Vertes said it was not appropriate at this time to identify those VIPs, though that decision could change later, he added.
“For the time being, I will direct” that the identities not be disclosed, he said.
Original Article
Source: calgary herald
Author: Sheila Pratt
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