Health money is for the sick
... not for fatcat bureaucrats' plane tickets and lunch
Last Updated: 2nd August 2009, 4:36am
Three news items I worked on this week got me thinking about entitlement.
The first had to do with two seniors from North Bay, Shirley and Ron Wakeling. Shirley has leukemia and the couple is forking out $2,500 a month for a prescribed medication because the Ontario Drug Benefit Plan won't cover it.
The second was about the Wood family from Peterborough. Sandy and John have a severely disabled little girl. They've been cut off a $410 a month allowance because John makes slightly more than the $60,000-a-year cap.
Call me crazy, but I thought the massive chunk of change the government deducts every paycheque in taxes went to support the most vulnerable in society -- the fragile, the elderly. The Wakelings, the Woods.
Apparently not.
So where's the cash going?
That brings us to the third story. The health ministry dumped six hefty binders on reporters last week. They were full of receipts for bills taxpayers have paid for various executives and board members of eHealth and its predecessor, Smartsystems.
One board member had a place in Florida and regularly jetted to Toronto for meetings he was paid $380 to attend. Yep, we picked up the cost of his airfare (round-trip, around $1,400 a pop) plus his car rentals -- even his tolls.
PAGES OF RECEIPTS
There were pages and pages of receipts for meals we taxpayers footed on behalf of these lucky folk.
One February bill marked, "dinner meeting with MOHLTC (Ministry of Health and Long Term Care) at posh Panagea restaurant hit taxpayers for $225, which included, among other things, one angel hair pasta for $44.98, a risotto for a mere $25.95 and "ondalan" at $75 -- a red wine, I presume, since the liquor tax came to $7.50.
Another former Smartsystems executive regularly billed for sushi and Thai food.
The CEO of eHealth, Sarah Kramer, and board chairman Alan Hudson, quit in June amid allegations that millions of dollars of untendered contracts had been awarded to consultants.
The latest six binders revealed about another $14 million in untendered contracts.
It was a mid-summer avalanche of paper dropped unexpectedly on reporters by the government, but no one was really snowed.
Health Minister David Caplan said it's "in the public's interest to be transparent and accountable."
Well, yes. But it would have been nice if the government had been transparent and accountable before the money went out the door -- and into the well-fed stomachs of all these Smartsystems and eHealth hangers-on.
One argument the government has made is that these are specialized folk with IT savvy.
That's just pure, puffed up, piffle and arrogance.
Take a minute to lift your heads out of the feedbag, guys, and have a look at the devastation that's happened in IT. Thousands of people are unemployed. Companies that do comparable work to eHealth are crying for contracts. They'll do it at a reasonable price -- and they'll buy their own lunches.
SHAMEFUL SITUATION
It's shameful that at a time when so many people are unemployed, when tax revenues are plummeting, that a government agency could allow a boondoggle such as this to continue as long as it did.
What irony that it was under the watch of former PC leader John Tory that the Conservatives put in the freedom of information request that revealed this mess. Now he's gone, and his successor, Tim Hudak, can take the glory.
All this would be marginally forgivable if we actually had an efficient electronic health record system. We don't.
Let's get our priorities right and spend our health dollars where they are supposed to be spent -- on the sick.
Not on a sick system.
CHRISTINA.BLIZZARD@SUNMEDIA.CA
Your Comments
This is what we get from a pathetic liberal government. McGuinty and Caplan should both be gone. I have no use for liars, cheaters and abusers and that is exactly what these to are. Is this why me and my wife are paying an extra $ 1,500 a year in health tax costs to cover these morons who have total disregard for taxpayer money? We the taxpayer should have more of a say in what we pay and where the money goes. Hey Dalton, I am tired of being taxed to death and I cannot afford to pay anymore. Listen to the people that put food on your table we cannot take anymore!!!!!!!
William, August 2nd 2009, 11:47pm