B.C. premier-turned-businessman on health-care system: Less bureaucracy, more technology and innovation

Critics outside of health care have sometimes urged government to run the system more like a business, but a British Columbian in the rare position of having held top jobs in both sectors insists it’s just not possible, agreeing with many suggestions from frontline workers instead.

Glen Clark was an NDP premier in the 1990s and now runs the conglomeration of companies under the Pattison Group as its president, giving him a unique perspective on both the public and private sectors. 

“(Health care) is huge. I mean, private companies might be big, but they’re not the size of these health-care systems,” he said in a one-on-one interview with CTV News at the Pattison offices.

“Government has multiple objectives – they can’t just maximize profit,” Clark said. “They have to look at equity issues, they have to look at communities, they have to look at public services, they have to look at multiple things and objectives – at the same time.”

Clark remains a member of the New Democrat party despite his 25-year career climbing the corporate ladder at one of Canada’s biggest privately held companies, so he doesn’t come down hard on his former colleagues, but he does see plenty of room for improvement. 

“It’s such a big bureaucracy that there is opportunity, I think, to lean-out the bureaucratic side of health care. I think there’s an opportunity to use technology in a way we haven’t,” he said, adding that best practices should be standardized across the province and successful pilot projects and improvements to systems should be adopted swiftly and widely.

ECHOING FRONTLINE ASSESSMENTS

Throughout the pandemic, health-care workers in a variety of occupations representing much of the province have approached CTV News to voice similar frustrations. They've complained of government increasing staffing in administration rather than on the frontline, dismissing improvements developed in individual hospitals or communities that could streamline and benefit other facilities, and being out of touch with those doing the hard work of health care. They've also reported seeing opportunities to cut red tape or wait times.

The health minister has been defensive when CTV News has raised the issue of consultation and co-operation with health-care workers, insisting quick decisions often need to be made, and sometimes even disputing workers' statements with statistics doctors criticize as cherry-picked. 

Earlier this fall, a specialist doctor went so far as to say she doesn’t think “there's a good understanding (in government) of the extent of the entire health-care crisis,” saying doctors, nurses and others are held at arms-length while government spends time meeting with administrators and bureaucrats instead.

THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S ROLE

Clark, who became premier when he was 38 years old in 1996, resigned amid a swirl of controversy for which he was later cleared, but couldn’t find a job in the meantime. Pattison was the only one to offer him a job, and the longtime politician became a rising star in the company.

Health Minister Adrian Dix was Clark's chief of staff. So perhaps it’s no surprise that Clark emphasized the complexity and hard work that goes into running the health-care system. But he also agreed that the federal government shouldn’t pour money into provincial coffers without requirements to provide better data and modernize aspects of the system. 

“I think they’re right not to just hand over money, period,” he said. “But I do think the federal government has lost a bit of their moral authority because they haven’t kept pace with the cost of health care.”

Clark emphasized that more money is needed from the federal government to properly fund and operate public health care and that they need to prioritize coming to an agreement soon, but he kept coming back to the idea that there are low- or no-cost improvements that can be made to improve the performance of the system, the working conditions for employees, and the outcomes for patients in the meantime.

“It’s such a cliché, but you need a thousand experiments,” said Clark. “It’s such a big system and you really need to look and be constantly experimenting and taking the learnings and applying them.”