Western Standard - December 19, 2023


Dismissal of Hinshaw from indigenous health team led to ethics investigation


Episode Stats


Length

1 minute

Words per minute

183.2713

Word count

279

Sentence count

24


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I speak with former Alberta Health Services (AHS) CEO Dr. Maan Mains about allegations that he was personally involved in the revocation of Dr. Hinshaw's position within AHS last spring.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 I'm hoping that you can comment on allegations of your political interference in the revocation
00:00:05.320 of Dr. Hinshaw's position within Alberta Health Services last spring.
00:00:11.180 So your question is?
00:00:15.580 Can you confirm the allegations in his resignation letter to Dr. Cowell, Dr. Madd states that
00:00:21.640 he's reiterated concerns several times that you, the premier, were reaching down four
00:00:25.880 levels into AHS and instructing them to rescind an approved contract.
00:00:30.160 What do you say to that allegation?
00:00:31.540 Well, I can tell you that I put Dr. Cowell in place to make these decisions.
00:00:35.520 I talked with him on a weekly basis.
00:00:37.760 We talked about staffing decisions a lot, and we have a major restructuring that we're doing
00:00:42.600 in Alberta Health Services as well.
00:00:44.420 So ultimately, it's the official administrator and now the board and the CEO who will make
00:00:51.920 those decisions.
00:00:52.540 And it was the case in this instance, too, that the decisions of AHS were made by AHS.
00:00:58.220 Thank you, Nicole.
00:00:59.100 Did you have a follow-up?
00:01:01.760 Sorry, it's Shailan.
00:01:02.700 Yes, and I do have a follow-up on that same topic.
00:01:05.220 In that resignation letter, Dr. Madd states that Dr. Cowell said that after speaking directly
00:01:09.460 with you on a phone call on June 1st, he said at a group meeting that the premier is firm.
00:01:14.280 There can be no hiring of Dr. Hinshaw.
00:01:16.240 Can you confirm that you had that phone call on June 1st with Dr. Cowell?
00:01:19.840 And you outlined that Dr. Hinshaw could not be hired.
00:01:22.540 Look, as I said, I talked with Dr. Cowell all the time about staffing decisions, and he
00:01:27.720 always made it clear that the decisions by AHS were made by AHS.