MORGAN： Dr. Yiu’s firing isn’t a bad move, it’s a good start
Episode Stats
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190.5827
Summary
Dr. Verna Yu was the head of Alberta Health Services, the province's largest and most important health care provider. She was fired by the NDP for her failure to deliver on a promise to fix Alberta's broken healthcare system.
Transcript
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Today, it's sort of celebratory. I'm seeing what I feel is a good development in healthcare.
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The NDP, on the other hand, are predictably apoplectic with the firing of Alberta Health
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Services CEO, Dr. Verna Yu. Yu was, after all, one of the last senior NDP appointees remaining
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in the civil service. So it's predictable as well that the NDP is claiming that the termination of
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Yu heralds the beginning of a push to make dramatic changes within the Alberta healthcare
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system. I can only say I hope so. Let's begin with Dr. Yu herself. I mean, in light of having gone
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through the biggest healthcare challenge the system has seen in generations, how is Dr. Yu's
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performance measured up? I think it's safe to say we haven't gotten our $677,000 per year
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worth of value out of Dr. Yu, to say the least. I mean, any manager can be forgiven for being caught
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flat-footed by the pandemic at the start of 2020. It was an unprecedented event. We didn't know what
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we were in for, and the world was in a panic. What was Dr. Yu's excuse, though, for the performance
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of the Alberta Health System at the start of 2022? I mean, we had two years of pandemic experience
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under our belts by then. Why is it that a healthcare system in a province of 4.4 million people
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was apparently brought to the edge of collapse by a mere hundred and some people in intensive care?
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We can't pretend the province's healthcare vulnerability was due to a lack of funding.
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Alberta was already spending as much or more per capita on healthcare than most of the
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jurisdictions on earth. Billions more in funding was injected into the system in response to the
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COVID-19 pandemic. With tens of thousands of procedures also being deferred, the health system
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was flush with more cash than it's ever had before. So if it's a lack of funding isn't causing the
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weakness in the healthcare system, the culprit has to be either bad management or the system itself.
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Well, actually, it's both. Alberta's healthcare system is suffering under bad management,
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ideologically beholden to a broken system. Starting with the management, though. Dr. Yu,
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as I said, had two years and billions of extra dollars to work with in preparing the healthcare
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system to withstand pandemic waves. As far as we can see, she did absolutely nothing with those
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dollars. The ways that the system's responding to the pandemic today is just the way it did two
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years ago. At a price of nearly $700,000 per year, I would expect a manager capable of addressing
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changes and challenges to the system under her care. The problem is, Dr. Yu is an adherent to
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the Canadian healthcare religion. The prime tenet of that faith is that nothing aside from funding
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increases shall ever be applied to the system. The system is the model of perfection, and it's
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blasphemy to even consider changing its sublime infallibility. The NDP are the high priests of this
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religion, by the way. Thus, they ensured they were appointing a stringent disciple of it when they chose
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Dr. Yu to be at the head of the sacred system. As far as the NDP is concerned, they chose well,
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as Yu did indeed change nothing. Alberta isn't alone. Six out of ten provinces in Canada haven't
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managed to increase their ICU capacity in the last two years, despite all of them increasing health
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spending. And that brings us to the system. Despite Canadian mythology claiming otherwise,
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Canada has one of the most rigid and inefficient healthcare systems on earth. While spending continues
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to increase, waiting lists continue to get longer, and positive outcomes are waning. We're not getting
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a good bang for our buck when we're measured against most of the developed nations in the world.
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It's hard to fault Canadians for clinging to Canada's system, despite its ever more evident shortcomings.
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I mean, we've been programmed to believe it's the best on earth for decades. The CBC created a series
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in 2004. It was tasked with identifying the greatest Canadian of all time. With weeks of episodes and
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carefully crafted discussions, it was concluded that NDP founder Tommy Douglas was indeed Canada's
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greatest Canadian of all time, because he created our current healthcare system.
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Douglas was formally canonized by the state broadcaster, and is considered blasphemy to question
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his holy creation. We have to break through the spiritual fervor of those defending Canada's broken
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system, though, and pursue some real reforms. There's hundreds of healthcare systems around the
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world, and many of them are outperforming Canada's. In fact, most of them are. We need to examine the
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best of these systems and emulate them. One common denominator in every system superior to Canada is
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they all have more private involvement in the provision of healthcare and allow for more patient choice.
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Now, private provision of healthcare is not sacrilegious. We need to focus on outcomes for patients
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rather than a misguided fixation on a fully socialized system. I couldn't care less about
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the American system, by the way. People like to point south of the border at the USA and use their
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system as some sort of bogeyman. Healthcare zealots will righteously howl that we'll surely become just
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like the Americans if we dare change any aspect of the Canadian system. Ah, that's a load of bunk.
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When somebody makes that claim, all it proves is they've fervently closed their mind to rational and
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productive discussion on healthcare reform. As with Canada, the American system is just one among
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hundreds. Universality is the principle most people agree upon maintaining. Nobody wants to see a
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person turned away from care due to lack of funds or wants to imagine a person being bankrupted from
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paying for essential care. Universality is maintained in most of the system superior to Canada's while
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allowing for competition and private involvement in the healthcare provision. Private provision options
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and universal care are not mutually exclusive things. And that myth is another one of the ones
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that needs busting. Healthcare always sits at the top of the polls among issues concerning Canadians,
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but we've been programmed to avoid any critical discussion on how to improve it. The firing of Dr.
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Werner Yu isn't a sign of an attack on universal healthcare, though there's some doctors and NDP
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folks claiming that right now. It's an indication of a government, though, beginning to embrace the need
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and agenda of reforming a broken system. I mean, turfing you in itself won't solve Alberta's healthcare
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woes. It is a good start, though, and it signals that nobody's role or position is sacred,
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and the government has finally started at the top. Let's hope they continue with it.