It's a massive understatement to suggest the last couple of weeks have been a tough time to be a spokesperson for Fraser Health in these parts.
After an extremely acrimonious relationship with the community a decade ago, the health region hasn't made a lot of news in recent years, but when it has, most of it has been of the positive variety. Services have been restored and expanded, with plans for even more, so the vibe has been largely favourable.
However, those sunny skies have seen dark clouds roll in. From the controversial discharge of an elderly woman from the ER at Delta Hospital, to the protest at the public health unit in Ladner, to a doctor sounding the alarm over service levels, the last couple of weeks have been rough. And if all that wasn't bad enough, local artists are so miffed with FHA regulations they've pulled their work from the walls of Delta Hospital.
Fraser Health is a monolith, an organization with more than 20,000 staff, an annual operating budget in the neighbourhood of $3 billion and a service area of some 1.6 million people, so it's only natural that issues would arise with some regularity.
Controversies over service levels are the most common as well as often the most difficult to address, given they're inextricably linked to budgets, taxes and the like. Ironically, however, it's perhaps the easiest situation to fix that's giving the Fraser Health the most grief these days.
The opening of the half-billion-dollar ER at Surrey Memorial last week was sideswiped when members of the media took the opportunity to probe further into the case of the Tsawwassen woman discharged from Delta ER in the middle of the night. I don't think Fraser Health CEO Nigel Murray did himself or the organization any favours by then issuing a statement that essentially supported the way the discharge was handled and offered a rather hollow apology for a "care experience (that) was not a positive one."
There are all sorts of mitigating factors, but the optics of this one are that a legally blind 90-year-old, wearing pajamas and stocking feet, was put in a cab alone in the middle of a rainy night. Having her stay in a bed for another six hours until a family member picked her up in the morning would, I think most would agree, have been the preferred option.
As I mentioned, it's a big organization, so there will always be fires that need to be put out, including ones that are started inadvertently.
