Province fails to find firm to review CancerCare Manitoba, but still plans to forge ahead
Ian Froese | CBC News | Posted: April 4, 2019 10:00 AM | Last Updated: April 4, 2019
Friesen determined to find efficiencies, while Kinew suggests it's just an excuse to cut
CancerCare Manitoba will still face an external review of some kind — even though the province hasn't found a company to do it.
A search for an outside firm to review the provincial cancer clinic turned up no successful proponents, the province told CBC News.
Nevertheless, the government remains committed to evaluating CancerCare Manitoba. No timeline has been determined.
"We would have preferred that the request for proposals had returned a suitable applicant," said Health Minister Cameron Friesen in a statement. "However, we will continue in our efforts to ensure CancerCare Manitoba is running efficiently so patient care and outcomes are as good as they can be."
The province is speaking with administration from CancerCare Manitoba to determine how an external review would take shape, Friesen added.
His office would not answer why the request for proposals proved to be unsuccessful, nor how many firms applied to review CancerCare, if any.
NDP Leader Wab Kinew remains convinced the government doesn't have the best interests of the provincial agency at heart.
Financial crunch
"Usually, when they do a review of something, they end up cutting more. We've seen this in many other parts of the health-care system and that's still my concern," he said.
In 2017, seven managerial positions were cut at CancerCare to follow the province's directive to find $2.5 million in savings.
The Tories also scrapped a new $300-million health-care facility in Winnipeg. The fundraising arm of CancerCare invested $20 million toward the purchase of land on Sherbrook and McDermot before the province cancelled the project to rein in spending.
Kinew said he wouldn't be surprised if there was little interest in the review.
"I don't know why people would line up to try and cut CancerCare," he said.
Kinew suggests an external review may simply be an excuse for the Pallister government to trim.
"I think the concern is that you're going to have an accountant come in and say you should cut millions of dollars from a program that helps people with cancer," he said.
A request to interview the head of CancerCare Manitoba, Dr. Sri Navaratnam, was denied, but in a statement she wrote she would work with the provincial health department to undertake a review to "help the organization." She previously said she wasn't nervous about the external review and whether it would lead to cuts.
Quality of care overlooked: Kinew
Last November, the NDP revealed the government was actively searching for an outside firm to review CancerCare, which Kinew immediately condemned for its focus on dollars and cents over quality of care.
He also said the province shouldn't keep the results of its value-for-money audit confidential and waste money hiring an expensive consultant after the much-discussed KPMG report already included CancerCare in the scope of its review.
The audit was supposed to examine the "overall operational efficiency and fiscal performance" by comparing CancerCare Manitoba with similar organizations nationwide, according to the request for proposals.
The contract was expected to be handed out in January and the work would have concluded 12 weeks after that, although Shared Health, the new organization co-ordinating health-care service in the province, wanted to speed up the process if possible.
CancerCare Manitoba provides prevention, early detection and multidisciplinary cancer treatment, supportive and end-of-life care at six sites in Winnipeg, one in Brandon and 17 other locations across the province.