Chemo scandal is third strike
Wrongly diluted chemotherapy drugs, ORNGE, eHealth — how did we get to the state in Ontario where the provincial government’s health ministry has become hazardous to our health?
In the latest potentially deadly fiasco, hundreds of cancer patients at four Ontario hospitals were given chemotherapy treatments over-diluted with saline solution by as much as 20%.
As in previous scandals, Premier Kathleen Wynne (before her, it was Dalton McGuinty) and Health Minister Deb Matthews, are promising to get to the bottom of what happened and make sure it never happens again.
But, yet again, as with eHealth and Ornge, the government’s expressions of concern are after the fact and after the damage has been done, closing the barn door after the horses have fled.
It raises the question of whether anyone in the health ministry charged with these files knows what they’re doing, up to and including the current health minister, previous health ministers and their senior bureaucrats.
Indeed, is anyone in government ever fired, or even disciplined, for displaying such gross incompetence on multiple files?
In the billion-dollar eHealth boondoggle, it was high-living ministry consultants running amok on the public dime, while failing to deliver a province-wide system of electronic patient medical records.
In ORNGE, it was CEO Dr. Chris Mazza and other company executives treating the province’s air ambulance service as if it was their personal candy store, while basic patient needs were not being met.
Now, in this latest chemo scandal, everyone’s running for cover and pointing the finger of blame at everyone else, from the publicly-funded hospitals involved to the private company that mixed the IV chemo bags, known as Marchese Hospital Solutions.
In yet another case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, we’ve since learned the company wasn’t subject to oversight by either the provincial or federal governments.
Simply put, how is that possible?
How is it possible in a country where governments are constantly figuring out new ways to intrude into our lives where they don’t belong, that there’s a complete absence of oversight on something as basic as ensuring cancer patients get the right chemotherapy treatment?
Then again, it’s not as if drug mix-ups are anything new in our hospitals, a problem which long predates the current Liberal government.
Indeed, one of the major purposes of the eHealth system, assuming it ever gets up and running, is to reduce the incidence of cases in which patients are given the wrong medication in hospital, sometimes with fatal results.
But that’s different from the chemo scandal, in which patients were given the right medication but in the wrong dosage, traumatic news not only for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, but for the loved ones of those who have died.
We shudder to think what the next health care disaster will be.
Chemo scandal is third strike | Editorial | Opinion | Toronto Sun
Wrongly diluted chemotherapy drugs, ORNGE, eHealth — how did we get to the state in Ontario where the provincial government’s health ministry has become hazardous to our health?
In the latest potentially deadly fiasco, hundreds of cancer patients at four Ontario hospitals were given chemotherapy treatments over-diluted with saline solution by as much as 20%.
As in previous scandals, Premier Kathleen Wynne (before her, it was Dalton McGuinty) and Health Minister Deb Matthews, are promising to get to the bottom of what happened and make sure it never happens again.
But, yet again, as with eHealth and Ornge, the government’s expressions of concern are after the fact and after the damage has been done, closing the barn door after the horses have fled.
It raises the question of whether anyone in the health ministry charged with these files knows what they’re doing, up to and including the current health minister, previous health ministers and their senior bureaucrats.
Indeed, is anyone in government ever fired, or even disciplined, for displaying such gross incompetence on multiple files?
In the billion-dollar eHealth boondoggle, it was high-living ministry consultants running amok on the public dime, while failing to deliver a province-wide system of electronic patient medical records.
In ORNGE, it was CEO Dr. Chris Mazza and other company executives treating the province’s air ambulance service as if it was their personal candy store, while basic patient needs were not being met.
Now, in this latest chemo scandal, everyone’s running for cover and pointing the finger of blame at everyone else, from the publicly-funded hospitals involved to the private company that mixed the IV chemo bags, known as Marchese Hospital Solutions.
In yet another case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, we’ve since learned the company wasn’t subject to oversight by either the provincial or federal governments.
Simply put, how is that possible?
How is it possible in a country where governments are constantly figuring out new ways to intrude into our lives where they don’t belong, that there’s a complete absence of oversight on something as basic as ensuring cancer patients get the right chemotherapy treatment?
Then again, it’s not as if drug mix-ups are anything new in our hospitals, a problem which long predates the current Liberal government.
Indeed, one of the major purposes of the eHealth system, assuming it ever gets up and running, is to reduce the incidence of cases in which patients are given the wrong medication in hospital, sometimes with fatal results.
But that’s different from the chemo scandal, in which patients were given the right medication but in the wrong dosage, traumatic news not only for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, but for the loved ones of those who have died.
We shudder to think what the next health care disaster will be.
Chemo scandal is third strike | Editorial | Opinion | Toronto Sun
