TORONTO – The findings by the Auditor General that
greater public oversight would have prevented the spending scandal
at eHealth was strongly embraced by the Ontario Public Service
Employees Union.
“Let’s hope the Premier and his government learned a
valuable lesson today: the more you hand over control of a vital
public service like health care to the private sector, the more
costs are going to skyrocket at the expense of the tax-paying
public,” said OPSEU president Warren (Smokey) Thomas.
“We couldn’t agree more with Auditor General
McCarter. The private consultants behind the eHealth spending
scandal weren’t able to contain themselves from pinching the public
purse for every last dime. That simply wouldn’t happen under a
genuine public system with built-in checks, oversight and
accountability.”
In his report, the Auditor General specifically
pointed to the fact that “there was a heavy, and in some cases
almost total, reliance on (private) consultants. By 2008, the
Ministry’s eHealth Program Branch had fewer than 30 full-time
employees, but was engaging more than 300 consultants …”
Thomas said watching the eHealth scandal unfold was
like reading a familiar old story.
He cited the Auditor’s report from 2008 which
revealed the privatization of the William Osler Hospital in Brampton
cost almost $500 million more than had Ontario used traditional
public procurement and financing.
“What nobody in government seems to understand is
that squandering this sort of money means that vital revenue is not
available to keep hospitals open and to hire the professional health
care workers we desperately need.”
Last month a London, Ontario hospital vice-president
resigned over a similar scandal as more than $3 million in
untendered contracts went to a former associate.
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