Relations between HSC and St. Boniface

Collins's timing could not have been better. He assumed the position at a time when efforts were being made to rationalize cardiac services in Winnipeg. To that point, the two major hospitals in the city, St. Boniface General Hospital (SBGH) and the Health Sciences Centre (HSC), had each been vying to be the main centre for cardiac services in the province, particularly in the field of adult cardiac surgery.

By 1981 most adult cardiac surgery was being carried out at SBGH. The small amount of pediatric cardiac surgery that was being done was performed at both SBGH and the Children's Hospital. The competition between the two hospitals had been seen for some time as unhealthy, in that it contributed to professional antagonism, to a duplication of services and costs, and confusion among members of the medical profession and the public. A number of studies and reviews had, in fact, recommended that cardiac services be centred at one or the other of the two major hospitals. While much of the discussion concerned adult cardiac services, the field of pediatric cardiac surgery called for the same considerations in Collins's eyes.

Before he actually started working in Winnipeg, Collins spoke with Dr. Morley Cohen, the director of the adult cardiac surgery unit at SBGH, and gained his support for his plan to establish a pediatric cardiac surgery unit at the Children's Hospital. After his discussions with Cohen, Collins believed that SBGH was going to be the centre for adult cardiac surgery in the province, while the HSC would be the centre for pediatric cardiac surgery.

By the time Collins started, however, the HSC had hired Dr. Jim Parrott, who became the acting head of the cardiovascular and thoracic section at the HSC and also performed adult cardiac surgery. In Collins's view this development flew in the face of what he had understood was going to occur. The hiring of Parrott continued the ongoing tension between medical staff of the two hospitals, a point that was mentioned frequently throughout the Inquest hearings.