Joanna Frketich wrote in "LHIN annual reports in limbo; Health ministry two years behind in releasing records on embattled agencies", (Hamilton Spectator, Aug.12, 2010):
"Annual reports detailing two years' worth of finances and inner workings of the local health integration networks have yet to be made public by the province.
The last LHIN annual report tabled in the legislature by the Ministry of Health covered the fiscal year April 1, 2007, to March 31, 2008.
The public has no access to the reports for 2008-09 submitted to the ministry by the 14 LHINs more than a year ago.
The latest annual report for 2009-10 submitted by June 30 is also not available.
"What are they hiding?" asked NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, who is MPP for Hamilton Centre.
"It raises another red flag about the LHINs. It continues to build a dark cloud around these organizations.
"If the government is refusing to table them publicly ... it's unacceptable. What is in there that shouldn't get the light of day?"
The ministry has also again postponed the review of the LHINs originally slated to be done in March. Instead, the review will be done by July 2012.
The delay announced yesterday came the same week Ontario's ombudsman harshly criticized LHINs for their lack of transparency, calling them "sneaky" for having a bylaw he considers "illegal" that allows them to have secret meetings on crucial issues such as hospital restructuring.
Andre Marin said he didn't know about the annual reports being kept from the public when he investigated the Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant LHIN over the past 17 months and created his report, called The LHIN Spin.
"Let me look into that," he said yesterday.
The Spectator has been asking the ministry when the annual reports will be made public for more than six months.
Ivan Langrish, spokesperson for the health minister, vowed yesterday to make the reports public but gave no indication of when.
"The annual reports are being reviewed," he said.
"They are going to be tabled very soon. I just don't have an exact date as to when that will happen. I can certainly guarantee you it will be happening.
"We certainly take our responsibilities for transparency very, very seriously."
He couldn't explain why it has taken more than a year to review the 2008-09 report.
Area LHIN chairperson Juanita Gledhill also doesn't know what's delaying the reports.
In contrast, the report from 2007-08 was available to the public in this area's LHIN on Dec. 5, 2008 -- less than six months after it was submitted to the ministry.
Langrish said the reason for postponing the review is because the LHINs, created in 2005, just started meeting their full mandate in July when long-term care came under their umbrella, joining home care, hospitals, community health centres, mental health care and community support services.
"We wanted to make sure they were given an opportunity to be at their full scope of practice before the review takes place," he said.
But Horwath argues the review and the annual reports are needed now more than ever after the ombudsman raised doubts about the integrity of decision-making at the LHINs.
"It's screaming for some kind of review," she said.
"The government is simply burying its head in the sand and ignoring that this is a major issue for people and needs to be resolved.""
*
The secrecy and lies and utter smarmbag duplicity just seeps and oozes out of McGuinty's scumbag Liberal government - around every corner there is another lie; another deception; another broken promise.
McGuinty said that George Smitherman's LHIN's were supposed to undergo annual reviews - THEN McGuinty cancelled (whoopsie... indefinitely postponed!) them.
Astoundingly, barely two days after the Ombudsman's Niagara LHIN investigation was released, Ontarians learn that the ombudsman wasn't even aware that these same LHIN's, with their secretive meetings, have also not bothered to issue their annual reports!!
[Is the pattern of Liberal healthcare duplicity which I've been writing about for several years becoming clear to you folks yet?!]
Marin saw what McGuinty's Liberals did to Suzanne Aucoin. He's seen the secrecy in the Niagara LHIN regarding the ER closures. Now Marin sees another disturbing lack of oversight - no publicly available annual reports!! (Let's not forget, this half-baked LHIN fiasco is the work of George Smitherman - be warned, Toronto...)
The sheer incompetence of McGuinty's Liberal scumbag government is FLICKING ASTOUNDING.
Our local Liberal hack, MPP Jim Bradley, essentially hides from any public explanation regarding his Liberal-run decrepit health-monopoly. The local newspaper, the St.Catharines Standard, hasn't asked Jim Bradley a non-partisan question in frickin' years. Did Jim Bradley know about the LHIN's missing reports?! Did anyone ask JimmyBoy?! Are the reporters at the St.Catharines Standard too busy kissing Jim Bradley's ass, while the Spectator does the work for them?
McGuinty and his Liberals, starting with that incompetent tool George Smitherman, were telling us the NHS had to CUT expenses to reduce its deficit!! Then, the Liberals denied that they were cutting health care!! Then just recently, Bradley popped up at a news conference bragging that his Liberals were going to give the NHS millions more!! But - we don't have any reports on which to base the veracity of the Liberals' funding claims; we're just supposed to trust these proven liars! This bobbing and weaving and political health-care gamesmanship practised by McGuinty's Liberal scumbags is sickening.
They run Ontario's monopoly simply as a vehicle to re-elect themselves with. It's a damn election toy to them.
And they won't allow Ontarians to say 'screw it - I want out of McGuinty's smarmy monopolist health-care fiefdom, I want to be able to pay for my own care': but the left and McGuinty DO NOT WANT THAT!!
Socialist Horwath says that this new revelation is 'screaming for some kind of review' - but WHAT kind of review does her NDP party propose?
Marin is really the only person who CAN do such a review, yet McGuinty just hoodwinked Marin - while Marin was investigating one part of the LHIN, McGuinty was keeping FLICKING secrets in another part!!
Marin is limited - prevented - by Liberal law from investigating the MUSH sector in Ontario!! Ask Jim Bradley about that!!! These Liberal scum have diligently protected their feeding-grounds from the prying and questioning eyes of ANY authority.
The only other way is to sue McGuinty and take his dangerously incompetent Liberal government to court. Is that what Horwath is screaming about? I thought not.
Horwath should finally acknowledge that McGuinty's ideologically-based health-care MONOPOLY is a failure, and that McGuinty's Liberals are incompetent to manage it. Horwath should support the orderly de-monopolization of Ontario's disastrous health-care monopoly.
Then we can take her party seriously.
McGuinty has FLICKED up Tommy Douglas's health-care ideas so badly, you can't go back. We must wean ourselves off our dependence on Jim Bradley and his Liberal scumbag acolytes to provide our health care.
We don't deserve this massive systemic health care incompetence from these Liberal asses. Health care is no joke.
*
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment