To the editor,
Our public health system is in crisis. It hasn’t happened overnight but no doubt the crisis has been exacerbated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
For many years, provincial governments have complained of the lack of health-care funding at the federal level. Statistics prove that over the past few decades the percentages of funding on the part of the feds was indeed reduced. Now, the federal government has announced it will increase its percentage of funding – not to the level being demanded by the provinces, but a larger input than has been the norm. In return, the federal government has demanded one thing of the provinces – accountability.
This is long overdue, not only in the field of health care, but just about every publicly-funded institution one can think of, including education and policing.
Over the past months there has been much reported about Canadian nurses leaving this country to take better-paying jobs in the U.S. As a neighbour noted to me, this has been going on for years. Yet, here in Ontario, nurses, along with many other front-line public employees, have had their salaries frozen to below two per cent per year.
There is a level of our health- care system – along with our education system, etc., that won’t be heading to the U.S. for higher incomes. That is the administration level.
Thanks to a report by Melissa Dunphy in the Sept. 22 issue of the Banner, I learned of the compensation approved for the Huron-Perth Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Miriam Klassen. The compensation was approved by the Huron Perth Public Health Board – and it is with this board, and not the MOH – that some hard questions regarding accountability should be directed.
The report stated that in 2021, the Huron-Perth MOH was paid $427,366.42, which included a stipend of $12,000 for being on-call 24/7. I was subsequently informed that a neighbouring MOH, in Grey-Bruce, received even more in compensation – $514,572.06 to be exact.
The compensation for the Huron-Perth MOH is considerably more than the stated salary for Canada’s Chief MOH, Dr. Teresa Tam – $324,000. It is more than the salary being paid to the Prime Minister of Canada ($379,000). Medical officers of health have an onerous responsibility, but is the stress level as high as it is for frontline health workers in crowed emergency rooms, or in ICUs? Why is it Ontario’s Premier, Doug Ford, can defend the level of compensation for nurses, yet make no mention of the level of compensation to not only MOH CEOs, but the very high compensation paid to LHIN (now Home and Community Care Support Services) administrators?
Since when did Canada approve blank cheque compensation for administrators? Ontario went through this debacle a few decades ago when it was made public the CAO of then Ontario Hydro was being paid in the millions of dollars.
Last year, while listening to the POTUS Channel on XM Radio during the horrendous criticism being levelled at Dr. Anthony Fauci – the U.S. government’s top infectious disease specialist – it was stated his government annual salary was substantially less than $300,000. While the U.S. pays its nurses more than Canada does, it maintains a much lower level of compensation for its publicly-funded administrators. Canada should take note.
The widening gap between publicly-funded administration and lower-level employees has been a growing concern for decades. It is to be hoped the federal government’s demand for accountability in health-care spending will be a beginning in putting a stop to unsustainable compensation for the upper level. How much money does a person need to do one’s work to the best of one’s ability, and to live well?
Sincerely,
Marion I. Duke
Joly Township, formerly of Listowel
