Health authority boss gets the axe

By Dan Hilborn
Feb. 23, 2005


The top bureaucrat in the Fraser Health Authority was fired on Tuesday morning in a move that is being described as an attempt to restore public confidence in the health-care system.

"Our board's first priority is public confidence in the health-care system," said Barry Forbes, chair of the health authority's board of directors, in a press release announcing Smith's departure.

"We believe that the dedication of our skilled leadership, care providers and other Fraser Health employees will help us to ensure that the patients, residents, clients and families we serve, and the many community partners with whom we work, do have confidence in our facilities, programs and services," Forbes said in the release.

Keith Anderson, a longtime employee of the health authority whose previous position was vice-president of health planning and systems development, will take over as the interim president and CEO for the health authority.

In a conference call with reporters just 10 minutes after announcing Smith's firing, Forbes tried to stick to the language outlined in the press release announcing the change. However, he did respond to several questions. While Forbes did not divulge details of Smith's severance package, he said the compensation will abide by the provincial government's guidelines.

Forbes also said that Smith, who earned an annual salary of $323,000, met "most of the targets" in his performance contract.

But Mike Olds, communications officer for the Hospital Employees' Union, said Smith's firing is indicative of the ongoing turmoil in the health-care system.

"It looks like an active pre-election panic by a government that's trying to fix the mess it created in the first place," Old said. "The government sat by while Bob Smith fired close to 1,000 workers, closed hundreds of beds and closed a hospital in New Westminster.

"They needed to set the blame," Olds said. "The problems in the Fraser Health Authority have been going on for many years. This looks like more of a political fix than a long-term strategy to fix the problems in the FHA."

Smith's firing comes one day after Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum called on the provincial government to fix the crisis in the Surrey Memorial Hospital emergency department, and as the NDP called for a public inquiry into the death of Baljit Bains, a 42-year-old man who was sent home from that hospital's emergency department.

Forbes insisted that Smith's firing was not "incident-driven." However, Anderson admitted that one of his first functions as interim CEO will be to meet with the leadership of Surrey Memorial Hospital.

"We're confident the services provided at Surrey Memorial Hospital were appropriate. But I will be meeting with Barry Forbes and the Surrey site to ensure that all appropriate actions were taken."

Smith had served as CEO and president of the Fraser Health Authority since June 2002 after serving in a similar post in Halifax.

Prior to that, he was president and CEO of Lions Gate Hospital and served as a director for the B.C. Cancer Agency and Arthritis Society of B.C.

His replacement, Anderson, was the local health authority's spokesperson who responded to media queries last week after Premier Gordon Campbell announced that the provincial government would be unable to meet its target of opening 5,000 new residential care beds in the province by the year 2006.