The Montreal Gazette
December 14, 2001Senator Should Quit Committee
By Lyle Stewart
A conflict of interest, according to the Random House dictionary, is "the circumstance of a public officeholder, business executive, or the like, whose personal interests might benefit from his or her official actions or influence."
Liberal Senator Michael Kirby - and the Senate committee on social affairs, science and technology that he chairs - is often trotted out as a middle-of-the-road voice in the debate on the future of Canada's public health-care system.
Judging by the committee's second report on the subject (released in mid-September but overshadowed by the terror attacks that month), the Kirby committee will likely recommend some public-private mix to "fix" health care. Observers expect him to opt for a system of public regulation but private delivery of health care - eerily enough, pretty much as the second of Southam News's national editorials recommended in yesterday's Gazette.
The committee has yet to offer any evidence that this approach would benefit the average Canadian, though there's plenty of evidence to suggest those who could only afford second-class treatment would suffer. Nonetheless, such a system would be guaranteed to personally benefit Michael Kirby.
Sits on board
As the Canadian Health Coalition details in a report this week, Kirby sits on the board of directors of Extendicare Inc., based in Markham, Ont., which owns hundreds of nursing homes and other health-care facilities throughout North America. That fact is fairly well known in the closed confines of Ottawa, where many of the groups and individuals who testify before Kirby's committee have bitterly complained about the apparent conflict. But barely a peep about it has been raised in the media.
Still, Kirby sought a ruling from Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's personal lapdog, Ethics Commissioner Howard Wilson, to clear his name. Wilson obliged him, ruling that Kirby's report would not be binding on the government. Therefore, Wilson concluded in a Nov. 27 letter to Kirby, "I do not find that you are in a conflict of interest." See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
Unfortunately, the experience of Extendicare in the United States doesn't portend much good for our health-care system if we go down the road Kirby is likely to recommend. As the health coalition found in its research of the U.S. nursing-home industry, Extendicare is beset by a series of liability lawsuits in Florida and Texas. The lawsuits have prompted the company to withdraw from both markets in order to lessen its "exposure to litigation."
The costly withdrawals follow the largest nursing-home abuse-and-neglect verdict in Florida history. The coalition examined records of the Extendicare nursing home in Pinellas County and found they showed that an Alzheimer's patient might have gone unfed for a month, was not given medication and did not receive treatment for a bed-sore infection that turned gangrenous. The patient died soon after. According to the coalition, "the family's attorneys presented evidence that the nursing home lacked enough nursing aides, and that the facility altered its records to show it had provided care that was never delivered." The jury awarded the family $17 million in punitive damages on top of almost $3 million in compensation, though the family accepted a confidential settlement to avoid lengthy appeals.
Ignores U.S.
This is one aspect of the private health-care system that ideological boosters never talk about. Kirby's committee likewise doesn't look at how that system actually operates in the U.S. It favours tax credits that benefit for-profit home-care industries. It relies on political positions advanced by private lobbyists at the Fraser Institute to support user fees and Medical Savings Accounts. And, as the coalition report emphasizes, the Kirby committee report argues that problems in the health-care system are related to the five principles of the Canada Health Act and that they must be substantially modified, without supplying evidence.
Kirby might not have the direct power to benefit his own interests. But as fawning media coverage of his committee's work has demonstrated, he certainly does have influence over the direction the Liberal government might take on public health care. The simple fact he stands to personally gain from future free-market health-care demands that he remove himself from the committee.
- Lyle Stewart is a Montreal writer. His E-mail is l.stewart4@sympatico.ca