Shared Health needs some serious healing

Doctors are trained to seek out the causes of illness, not just to treat the symptoms.

That is, perhaps, a style of examination that the government of Premier Wab Kinew should follow with the health-care system as a whole. Because the symptoms look a little dire.

Last week, provincial chief medical officer Dr. José François announced he will leave his position in January 2027. That means he will leave a position he has only held since April 2024 — less than three years.

His departing email certainly raised more questions than it answered. While he wrote that he enjoyed working with Shared Health’s dedicated professionals, “the demands of the role, coupled with the challenges of the work environment, have led me to reflect on my professional priorities and seek opportunities that offer a renewed sense of purpose, fulfillment and enjoyment.”

The suggestion, of course, was that the doctor was not finding the role fulfilling or enjoyable.

And he’s not the first senior health executive to make a recent departure from regional health authorities. Others have left for the private sector, taken early retirement and some have even been fired — making it difficult to implement new long-term strategies.

Shared Health has been working to fill three executive positions since August. It seeks a corporate services vice-president and chief financial officer; a vice-president of quality, strategy and performance; and a chief operating officer of mental health and addictions.

Several other senior positions, including those of the chief executive officer of the Winnipeg Health Authority and the president and chief executive officer of Shared Health, are filled by interim office holders.

Browsing the senior executives of Shared Health and the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority on their respective websites shows four executives holding interim positions and four vacancies (including Dr. François). Two of those interim positions are CEOs currently replacing senior executives fired by the Kinew government.

While Prairie Mountain Health here in western Manitoba does not have the same problem — all executive management positions are filled with permanent staff — such a high turnover in the provincial capital has to be seen as unusual.

For example, when Shared Health does hire its new chief financial officer, that newly-minted executive will be the authority’s fourth CFO since 2023. It’s tough to make significant changes in major institutions when your senior staff are changing even more quickly.

Couple the fact that new health executives have to find their feet in a challenging, high-pressure work environment with the obvious notion that qualified candidates must now be questioning whether they want to apply, given the obvious churn and turnover — and you have a situation that suggests these organizations may need significant time to recover and recalibrate before they start the necessary work to address all the significant issues on the ground in Manitoba health care.

Back in August, Kinew talked about the success his government has had cutting extra positions in senior health-care management. At the time, he said his administration had removed eight per cent of Shared Health’s senior management during its first year.

It looks like that trimming continues organically in the executive suite — and it does not look in any way like a symptom of organizational good health. In fact, it looks like the opposite — as if skilled, energized professionals who would normally take the lead in pushing ideas forward are instead being exhausted by unreasonable workplace demands and finding it necessary to walk away.

Right now, the resignations are coming from inside the house. It’s a troubling and potentially serious symptom.

The Kinew government might want to get a professional checkup by a specialist into the apparent malaise in the executive suites of Manitoba health care — before the departure disease gets a lot worse.

» Winnipeg Free Press and The Brandon Sun