Read the Terms of Reference your self here.
Pursuant to section 17 of the Health Quality Council of Alberta Act, the Lieutenant Governor in Council orders that a public inquiry be held concerning the possibility of improper preferential access being given to publicly funded health services and, specifically, the terms of reference for the inquiry shall be to consider:
1. Whether improper preferential access to publicly funded health services is
occurring; and
occurring, make recommendations to prevent improper access in the future.
Not even close to what Redford promised (link now dead but see bottom of this blog), not anywhere near the way she tried to spin it, and not what Albertans expected or deserve.
It's a whitewash.
The judge has NO choice or leeway to expand or go beyond these instructions PERIOD, any claims that the judge can investigate anything other than what is listed in these terms is quite simply BS.
Our Premier is a lawyer and was also our justice minister; she not only knows exactly what the terms of reference mean, she also had a big hand in writing them and an even bigger hand in spinning them to the public.
And sadly most Albertans won't have figured it out until long after the election. Which was the PC plan all along.
Updated with the article linked to above. ( if media wouldn"t delete their articles there would be no need to reproduce them in full, which I now feel I have to do just to prove I am not making stuff up.)
What Alison Redford has said about need for a health-care inquiry
Calgary Herald
Published: Friday, March 02, 2012Alison Redford, in light of growing accusations of political interference in the health-care system, has called for a judicial inquiry.
The inquiry will focus on charges of political interference into the provincial health system.
"Dr. Duckett, in his address on May 5th, stated outright that before his tenure as CEO of the AHS, people of the 'political class' were accustomed to being granted higher access in the system than those who were not as connected," stated Alison Redford, candidate for leader of the PC party.
"This statement, when combined with earlier allegations of a culture of intimidation, has provided an impetus to call for an independent inquiry."
"My call for an inquiry is about finding out the truth and putting a stop to practises that go against my personal and political values ..."
- In the legislature Nov. 21, 2011, in response to a question about the alleged intimidation of one doctor concerned about a health-care facility closure in Calgary:
"Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to see that, in fact, if someone does have concerns with respect to doctor intimidation, they would be prepared to come to an inquiry. The legislation will be tabled in the house today to ensure that that can happen."
- Speaking to reporters in Calgary on Feb. 24, 2012:
Herald's Don Braid: "You said when you made your statement in the summer about the inquiry that it should - you're talking about political interference, I believe you refer to that and intimidation. Are you going to make both of those issues part of the inquiry?"
Redford: "It has to be."
- Redford at a March 1 news conference:
"I, in my heart, believe and know that the commitment that I made last June is the commitment that we honoured this week. I want to make sure that we've dealt with queue jumping in the health-care system and last summer, I made a commitment to have an independent judicial inquiry with respect to that....
"I have not backed down one bit from what I said that I would do."
© Calgary Herald 2012
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*I would rate this article a 9 out of 10.
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3 comments:
When I first heard of the changes in terms of reference I immediately thought that this inquiry was to keep the slaves on the plantation not uncover real problems in the system. An inquiry on 'queue jumping'?!? What is queue jumping? If I show up with a hangnail and the guy behind me shows up in cardiac arrest I should get treated first because I showed up first? Alison old girl you are completely off the rails and really I know you're new to the job but please for the sake of Alberta RESIGN or call and election so we Albertans can kick you and your duplicitous dictionary to the gutter where such nonsense belongs.
Today's headline in the Calgary Herald: "Alberta MDs demand 'tsunami of change'"
And their lead editorial is: "Money for nothing--MLAs should return pay from committee that never met".
The Herald editorialist are pulling no punches, giving a LOT of prominence to Redford's many screwups.
I never thought the Herald would go this far against the PCs. So what's going on ? One clue is the Herald editorial from the summer, which endorsed Gary Mar, and called on the PC membership to give him a big mandate, so that Albertans would have strong leadership.
The Redford/Mar rocky relationship looks like another powder-keg. It's all good.
Now if only we can get the REDmonton Journal to turn on Redford and advocate for their Dippers/Libs. The polls are going to be hugely important--if the PCs look like they are going to lose, there is no longer any good reason for the lefties to stay on board the PC ship.
I'm dealing with a return of a particular "nasty" cancer - kidney cancer. It's into my bones, lungs and liver and probably some other places that my oncologist hasn't revealed to me yet.
Since 2001, I have been lead to believe that the health care system that I pay for "had my back".
Imagine my surprise that the "blood work" I had been lead to believe was monitoring any potential return after ten years - doesn't do what I was lead to believe, especially when looking at the x-ray of the hole in my upper arm, eaten into the bone by RCC(renal carcinoma), while the doctor who examined me and holding the results of the blood work from less than an hour ago tells me "it shows nothing".
Kidney Cancer Canada tells me 5000+ people a year are diagnosed with this disease in Canada and about 1600+ a year die from it. Spread that around the ten provinces - that's "only" 160 dead in the province of Alberta and less than the premier's stated deaths from automobile/booze fatalities. There is virtually no research money spent on this disease, similarly with prostate cancer - the cash flow is not matched by the incidence of this cancer, as well as others, yet the provinces have built monopoly industrial-sized health care systems to "decide" what health care you get. They have your back and you pay lots for it at tax time.
If blood work for kidney cancer doesn't do it's job, I'm sure, no positive that they know about that and are working on it.
Que-jumping, only a lawyer could dream up such a waste of money to investigate what the medical industry has been doing ever since state-run, public "health care" was invented.
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