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The management of Whitehorse General Hospital (WGH) has become embroiled in a major political row. Charges and counter-charges have been aired in the Yukon Legislative Assembly, as Health Minister Brad Cathers defends hospital CEO Michael Aeberhardt against accusations of high-handedness and incompetence leaked to the Liberal Party opposition by hospital insiders. For his part, Mr Aeberhardt, who was appointed only last October, either stonewalls, maintaining everything at WGH is just fine, or refuses to speak to the press.
Even more damaging allegations emerged this week. A former chair of the hospital’s Board of Trustees says that the problems are even more grave than formerly known, and a letter signed by several local doctors calls on CEO Aeberhardt to resign.
Marny Ryder suddenly quit last November after four years as board chair. This week she went public, charging that the hospital has serious problems, finance-wise, health care-wise, and otherwise.
“It has been the tip of the iceberg for two or three years,” says Marny Ryder, who served as the chair for four years. “Not sufficient funding, poor communication, the whole thing. It’s just bubbled up.”
The Yukon Medical Association and the Yukon Registered Nurses Association have publicly stated there are staffing shortages at the hospital and the territory as a whole is at a crisis point.
Hospital CEO Michael Aeberhardt, however, has maintained there isn’t a problem.
Other concerns mentioned by Ms Ryder include lack of communication between Health Minster Cathers and the hospital board, poor recruitment and retention of nurses, and doctors getting increasingly fed up with Mr Aeberhardt. The doctors themselves soon verified the latter claim.
Doctors at Whitehorse General Hospital have delivered a letter to Michael Aeberhardt, the new CEO, asking him to resign.“We have had some patient care concerns and we have had issues regarding patient care delivery and style of management of the CEO,” Dr. Rao Tadepalli, president of the Yukon Medical Association, told the Star in an interview this morning.
“We have let the hospital know of the reservations that the doctors have had with regard to his style of functioning.”
Tadepalli declined to comment on the actual contents of the letter, saying it’s a private petition that wasn’t ever intended to be publicly released.
There are, however, concerns with Aeberhardt, he said.
“There’s a perception out there that he does not understand a community like Yukon and hasn’t helped with the staff morale. It continues to go low.”
(That Whitehorse Star story is behind a subscriber wall, unfortunately.)
The CBC tried to contact the embattled CEO for his reaction, but without success.
Aeberhardt, who assumed the position on Oct. 31, 2006, was out of the territory Thursday and was not available for comment.
But the doctors' letter came following remarks this week from former hospital board chair Marny Ryder, who slammed Aeberhardt for what she said was his lack of commitment to the territory.
This blog post is based entirely on publicly available news reports. Information that I have received from other sources, however, corroborates Marny Ryder’s claim that this is just the tip of the iceberg.
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