Monday, March 7, 2011

Good riddance to Gledhill, and to the Liberal LHIN's as well

Grant Lafleche wrote in "LHIN board is stepping down in June" (St.Catharines Standard, Mar.5, 2011):

  "Juanita Gledhill's sometimes controversial leadership of the body that funds health care in Niagara will end this summer when her second and final three-year term as a member of the Local Health Integration Network expires.
  "It's in the legislation," Gledhill said.
  "Members of the LHIN can only serve two terms. My last term ends on June 1."
  Also leaving the LHIN are vice-chairman Jack Brewer and Niagara representative and former District School Board of Niagara chairman Bill McLean. Both men have also reached the end of their second term.
  Gledhill said she is proud of the work the LHIN did during her time as chairwoman, especially in "bringing local decision-making to health care."
  In particular, she said increasing the number of respite and long-term care beds in Niagara has made a major difference in the community. She pointed to the LHIN's role in helping the Niagara Health System get increased funding from Queen's Park to overcome a systemic operating deficit.
  "That was a problem from the start of the NHS," Gledhill said. "We collectively said to the province, here is what the NHS is doing, here is how it is being funded. And the funding always came up short."
  However, she said she recognizes not all the decisions made by the LHIN were universally popular. Although the LHIN-mandated restructuring of the NHS continues to fan the flames of political opposition in some quarters in Niagara, Gledhill said it was the right decision.
  "When we started, the NHS was inadequate. The level of service was not adequate. The quality of service was not adequate. For us, this was about making sure patients received the right care at the right time in the right place," she said.
  Gledhill said she understands changes made at the NHS — including converting emergency rooms in Port Colborne and Fort Erie to urgent-care centres — were sometimes unpopular.
  "The evidence is what the evidence is," she said. "I would encourage (municipal politicians) to look at the outcomes of the changes that were made."
  She pointed to the stroke clinic in Niagara Falls and a cardiac rehab centre in Fort Erie as positive changes.
  Gledhill, who joined the LHIN as chairwoman in 2005, said she has no plans to seek a position on another government-appointed board in the future. She said she promised her husband and teenaged son she would spend more time at home in Hamilton.
  She said the provincial government is in the process of replacing the departing members of the LHIN and hopes new ones will be chosen before the trio steps down.
  "If it works out, then we will have to some time to do a proper transition," she said."
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Wonder which Liberal butt-licker will be shoved into this Liberal-created LHIN disaster next, by way of a Dalton McGuinty order-in-council appointment?!

These LHIN seats should all be held in abeyance, with no more political appointees installed until after the next election, at which point Ontario's useless LHIN-experiment should be terminated.

Notice how this St.Catharines Standard story did not even bother to provide any comments from Liberal MPP Jim Bradley regarding Gledhill's scheduled departure. [What's Good Ole Jimmy got ta do wid any o' dis?! Why should we bother Ole Jimmy for a comment?!]

Notice the part of the story [outlined in red above] about the "LHIN-mandated restructuring of the NHS" - it is not clear here whether this particular assertion was actually said by Gledhill (there are no quotes given) or was inserted as an editorialization by reporter Lafleche. Who exactly in this story said that the NHS restructuring was mandated by the LHIN?

The fact is indisputable that this so-called "LHIN-mandated restructuring"  DID NOT - repeat, DID NOT - originate from Gledhill, nor from her LHIN! To claim otherwise is either a lie by Gledhill or an outright misrepresentation by the St.Catharines Standard. It is disingenuous to propagate this fiction that 'the LHIN mandated the NHS to restructure'.

Let's get this straight:
The restructuring of the NHS was mandated BY McGUINTY'S HEALTH MINISTER GEORGE SMITHERMAN.
IT WAS McGUINTY'S LIBERAL CABINET - NOT THE LHIN - WHICH INITIALIZED THE RESTRUCTURING OF THE NHS!
THE LHIN SIMPLY CARRIED OUT THE ORDERS OF McGUINTY'S LIBERAL GOVERNMENT!

Yet somehow (!!) this fact isn't mentioned - either by Gledhill or by Lafleche! Oooopsie!

This is not a splitting of hairs - this is an absolutely crucial basic fact to understand, when reporters and Liberal-appointed hacks are spinning deceptions in Ontario's health-care monopoly, protecting the Liberals who actually DID mandate the restructuring.

In other words - is Gledhill now taking the entire responsibility for restructuring the NHS (!!!?); or, is Lafleche giving her this dubious honour?!!!!!! In either case - didn't McGuinty's Ministry of Health and McGuinty's health minister George Smitherman have anything to do with this restructuring?!!!

[The credit for the NHS restructuring actually belongs to none other than Kim Craitor - he was the Liberal who whined on about "NHS reviews"  back in 2007; Smitherman then obliged Craitor with the NHS cuts! Today's Liberal health minister Deb Matthews thinks the NHS and the LHIN's have done a good job!]

Are we supposed to now believe that Gledhill and her Niagara LHIN one fine day in 2008 just came up with this idea to... um... "restructure" the NHS, and that McGuinty, Bradley, Craitor and Smitherman only found out about it a coupla years later??!!

Seriously - come on!!!  What kind of shit are the St.Catharines Standard and the LHIN trying to pull here?

Also, contrary to Lafleche's spin in the Standard, Gledhill's LHIN doesn't "fund healthcare" - TAXPAYERS FUND HEALTH-CARE.

Taxpayers are FORCED to fund Ontario's Liberal health care monopoly.

The LHIN doesn't have a goddam penny which it doesn't first get from McGuinty's Liberal government!

What a charade by the St.Catharines Standard to continue printing such outright lies!

It is McGuinty's government - the Liberal government of missing-in-this-story Jim Bradley and Kim Craitor - which "funds health care" by appropriating our tax dollars!

Come on!!!

And did Gledhill actually say anything about 'fanning the flames of opposition' - or did Lafleche editorialize this as well? Gledhill is proud of what she's done, telling us it was "the right decision": hmmm - but who the f*ck elected her?

Since when did this unelected LHIN bureaucrat become a mouthpiece apologist for the Liberal government?

It is McGuinty and his Liberal monopolists who are in charge.

Gledhill and her LHIN colleagues are simply Dalton McGuinty's and Jim Bradley's political apparatchiks.
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