A colleague at Corus Radio London put it best yesterday. This situation is an instant talk show – just add water!
It came to light that the Chief Information Officer at London Health Sciences Centre had given $3 million dollars in untendered contracts to a former colleague. Instead of explaining herself, the CIO went on the attack, vowing to root out the whistleblower who “violated the hospital’s confidentiality policy.” It was a witch hunt. That whistleblower, thankfully, hasn’t been identified and ought to be protected. They alerted the community to shady goings-on. So the CIO has been let go from her $260,000. a year job and she rides off into the sunset with a severance payout of $451,000. How are these sweet deals made? And why don’t I have one?
This province still doesn’t have whistleblower protection and the CIO’s attempt to deflect attention from her flagrant misuse of funds, thankfully, failed completely. But the scandal is far from over and it just goes to show that there are people in positions of authority, in charge of millions of dollars in budgets, who will exercise terrible judgment. We can only hope that the loss of power hurts her ego because the sudden acquisition of so much money is already hurting the perception of a hospital that’s always in fundraising mode.