The Official Opposition misquoted Eastern Health CEO Vickie Kaminski today in a release sent to media. Eastern Health would like to clarify that the CEO did not link management reductions to the Cameron Inquiry, rather the Official Opposition took licence with interview comments by CEO. Read the full transcript of the interview comments were taken from below or view the interview at cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/cuts-to-healthcare-will-focus-on-management-1.1330210?autoplay=true. "HEALTHCARE CUTS: The health care system accounts for more than a third of our spending and hospitals are on notice that their turn is coming next year. Friday, April 05, 2013 06:30PM CBC - Television JONATHAN CROWE: Welcome back to Here and Now everyone. Cuts to Justice, cuts to Education. What’s next? The health care system accounts for more than a third of our spending and hospitals are on notice that their turn is coming next year. Vickie Kaminski is the boss at Eastern Health and she speaks with Debbie. DEBBIE COOPER: Thank you very much, Jonathan and welcome to the studio, Vickie Kaminski. VICKIE KAMINSKI: Thank you very much. DEBBIE COOPER: Let’s talk about what the health minister said to reporters ah during the budget lockup last week. She said there are going to be two hundred jobs coming out of the health boards next year. What do you expect that’s going to mean for Eastern Health? VICKIE KAMINSKI: Well from our perspective when we received our budget letter we were $30 million short from what we had received last year. $23 million of that we had accounted for through our efficiency work. We knew that we were taking $23 million out. So we, we expected that to be off our budget. So that left us with $7 million to, to ah accommodate. And if we look at that in terms of management positions, it equates to somewhere between sixty-five and seventy-five management jobs. DEBBIE COOPER: That’s what they are targeting, isn’t it? Or that correct, management? VICKIE KAMINSKI: That’s, that’s been the, that’s been the request that government has made of us is to do a management review and to see if we can shave our management right. And I think that’s ah, they recognize the need for frontline service and, and maintaining frontline service and so very, very reluctant to cut into that and make access more difficult or make services ah harder to, to ah be available to people. DEBBIE COOPER: You know, I’m just reminded of the Cameron Inquiry. They pointed out that one of the problems during the breast cancer scandal if you want to call it that was there wasn’t enough managers monitoring the situation. So there’s a danger in cutting so much isn’t there? VICKIE KAMINSKI: There’s a danger in cutting too much. And I think that’s where the government has said to us don’t, don’t chop, ah do a review, take a look at what you’re doing, is there a way for you to do it differently. Can you ah actually take that money out, save management positions and still operate a safe and efficient organization. So, so that’s what we’re doing. We’re taking the next couple of months to do that review and to see where we have some vacancies, can those vacancies ah be maintained, where we have some possible retirements, can we look at reshuffling work and ah, and using people differently. DEBBIE COOPER: You’ve already been going through this process since last May. You announced . . VICKIE KAMINSKI: Uh-hum. DEBBIE COOPER: . . . you were going to get rid of equivalent of 550 jobs, I think it was $43 million you said at the time. VICKIE KAMINSKI: That’s right. DEBBIE COOPER: So where does that stand now and how much more can you cut? VICKIE KAMINSKI: Well so the $23 million coming out this year is year two of that $43 million plan. DEBBIE COOPER: Ah-hum. VICKIE KAMINSKI: So we took, we took 20 million out in the year that just ended March 31st. This 23 million this year is the second year of that efficiency plan covers it. This other piece though is, is really earmarked for changes in, in management and in clinical utilization review. So we’ve done a good job at looking at how we operate the organization and ah looking at efficiencies there. So in some of the service areas like housekeepings and dietary and nursing hours of care that could be ah done differently so instead of using overtime could we lose straight time if we had planned better. What we haven’t done a good job at yet and what we’ve just embarked on is looking at our clinical utilization. DEBBIE COOPER: And what, what does that mean? VICKIE KAMINSKI: So if we take a look at doctors’ practices and how, what, what kinds of patients we have in our organizations and so we’re starting with St. John’s. We’re looking at St. Clare’s and the Health Sciences. Ah so we’ll see very often for example ah we have an emergency department at the Health Sciences that caulker block full. We have fifteen patients who are admitted, waiting for beds. They can’t get a bed and we could have empty beds at St. Clare’s. So being able to streamline our services so that we have the patients and the beds matched up in an organization and have physicians looking after them. What happens right now is they don’t always move to the St. Clare’s because the kinds of service they’re getting, that service is only available at the Health Sciences. DEBBIE COOPER: Are you going to drill down to how you actually do certain surgeries and all of that? We’re really running out time so if we could just . . VICKIE KAMINSKI: Yeah. DEBBIE COOPER: . . . ah quickly we can ask. VICKIE KAMINSKI: We, we are. So we’re looking at what it costs for us to do a gall bladder case for instance or a hip replacement or a knee replacement and seeing if we can change our, our services, change our prosthetics, change our equipment and do it cheaper. DEBBIE COOPER: Well you were pretty blunt last May saying that Eastern Health was riddle with inefficiencies. In a nutshell, how are things today? VICKIE KAMINSKI: We’re better. We still have a $23 million ways to go to be in the top ten percentile and then we have a lot of constant review to take place in order to keep us there. DEBBIE COOPER: Okay, Vickie Kaminski, thank you very much. VICKIE KAMINSKI: Thank you.
Posted on: Thu, 03 Oct 2013 20:57:29 +0000
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