Wab Kinew's NDP government received its first report card last week---and received a solid 'F'.
This wasn't from the Opposition Tories or from one of the shill doctors associations that the NDP relied on to attack the Conservatives in power.
This grading came right from the top echelon of the Manitoba health care system that's now under the control of the NDP.
Dr. Eberhard Renner was head of the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Manitoba and the provincial specialty lead for Shared Health. He recently resigned from both roles. Then he retired.
Last week the Winnipeg Free Press carried a opinion piece by him explaining why he's taken such a drastic move.
The explanation was explosive!
But the NDP cheerleaders in the mainstream media have done their best to bury it. We believe that his critique should be shouted from the rooftops.
Dr. Renner started by stating his credentials.
"I have been a physician for over 40 years. I started out as a clinician and researcher and gradually moved into academic and health system leadership positions. I was privileged to work first in my home country (Switzerland) interrupted by a couple of years in the U.S. (University of California, San Francisco), and since 2004 I have worked in Canada, including in Toronto, where I was the director of the liver transplant program at the University Health Network, one of the largest health systems in Canada."
He then proceeded to carpet bomb Kinew's government's past, present and likely future management of the health care system.
"I saw a lot of health system dysfunction (in his career). However, none of it reached the extent of dysfunction that is present currently in healthcare in Manitoba." he wrote.
Dr. Renner knew his criticisms would be dismissed as coming from a political bias.
"I wouldn't be easily characterized as politically partisan, even if doing my own composting might suggest I am a little 'granola'," he wrote. "As a senior leader, I had deep frustrations with the previous government and frequently defended the right of my physician colleagues to share their personal views with the public, just as I do now. Like many of them, I had hoped that this would no longer be necessary with a new government."
"But my disappointing observation so far is that like its predecessor, this government meddles relentlessly in our health system without empowering those with expertise to run it."
"In fact, in many instances this government's actions frankly hinder the ability of expert leaders to do their job."
He wrote that for months he and others ("including some who were appropriately vocal critics of the previous government") tried to explain to officials within the system, including the Minister of Health, that those in power needed to make three "absolutely crucial" changes that "will get the system back on track to serve Manitobans."
The first two that he wrote about were inside baseball gobbledygook, but the third was clear as a bell and aimed at the heart of NDP's governing style: governments must "refrain from directly interfering in the health system with paralyzing, micromanaging interventions."
"In fact, since the election, I have witnessed an increasingly unco-ordinated, ill-advised, and micromanaging government that is either uninterested or unable to take the critical steps to co-ordinate health service delivery in the province."
Ouch.
Dr. Renner was relentless.
"As a result of this governance vacuum, it is truly the wild west."
By that he means every "stakeholder" (read private pressure group) and "regions in our health care system" are running to the government for funding and approval of this, that and the other plan and program. Why? Because of the "success such partisan actions have" with the NDP government.
"As a provincial specialty lead I feel accountable for, but no longer in control of, my service area, an impossible situation that I am no longer willing to accept."
"I wanted this government to be successful, and I believed in the need for change. But I cannot perpetuate the illusion that things are better now than they were six months ago."
"They are even worse."
Dr. Renner's quiver wasn't empty yet. He had one more arrow to skewer Wab Kinew and the NDP.
Consider this, he wrote, ”are we not among the top in the country, maybe even worldwide, in recycling previous health system leaders...?
"Do we not regularly appoint them to new positions and consultancy tasks that seem tailor-made for their returns?
"Can they truly be said to have been effective when they were in charge previously? ... What possible magic would make any of them more effective now?"
"The worst, perhaps, are the optics: you help me win an election and I recycle you as your reward ..."
Six months in, the NDP has successfully driven one of the provinces top doctors out of his job.
Now that's optics.