The Pediatric Cardiac Surgery Inquest Report

 

 

Responding to the report

Blanchard received the report on February 7. Two days later, he met with Postl, Craig and Lindsay (who by now had arrived) to review the report. They decided that it would be necessary to place the PCS program on hold while the two options proposed by Williams and Roy were fully explored. They anticipated that this process might take six months. Craig informed Thorfinnson of the decision the following day. Craig and Thorfinnson arranged for the three department heads to meet with Thorfinnson, the HSC vice-presidents, and representatives of the Manitoba government on the morning of February 13. A meeting of all the HSC personnel involved with the program was set for noon on February 14. The Williams and Roy report was kept confidential: section heads were allowed to read it in the office of their department head, but they were not allowed to remove it from the office.

Present at the meeting on February 13 were Blanchard, Craig, Postl, Thorfinnson, the four HSC vice-presidents (Susan VanDeVelde-Coke, Helen Wright, Dr. J.D. Sutherland, and John Horne) and Jim Rodger, the assistant to the HSC president. Two representatives were present from the Manitoba Government: the Deputy Minister of Health, Dr. John Wade, and the Assistant Deputy Minister of Health, Tim Duprey.

At the meeting Blanchard summarized the Williams and Roy Report and its recommendations. All three department heads spoke in favour of restructuring the current program rather than switching it to Saskatoon. According to notes taken at the meeting by Rodger, the three also indicated that a new surgeon was needed and that it was not possible to rebuild around Odim. According to Rodger's notes, Wade said that he did not think that Manitoba had the population to provide a pediatric cardiac surgeon with the volume needed to maintain her or his skills.

Thorfinnson stressed the need to have a media strategy to deal with the issue. It was agreed that the program would be suspended for six months and that a news release would be issued the following day.

 

 

Current Home - Table of Contents - Chapter 9 - Responding to the report
Next The role of the President and vice-presidents
Previous The Williams and Roy Report
Section 1 Chapter 1 - Introduction to the Issues
  Chapter 2 - Pediatric Cardiac Issues
  Chapter 3 - The Diagnosis of Pediatric Heart Defects and their Surgical Treatment
  Chapter 4 - The Health Sciences Centre
Section 2 Chapter 5 - Pediatric Cardiac Surgery in Winnipeg 1950-1993
  Chapter 6 - The Restart of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery in 1994
January 1, 1994 to May 17, 1994
  Chapter 7 - The Slowdown
May 17 to September 1994
  Chapter 8 - Events Leading to the Suspension of the Program
September 7, 1994 to December 23, 1994
  Chapter 9 - 1995 - The Aftermath of the Shutdown
January to March, 1995
Section 3 Chapter 10 - Findings and Recommendations
Appendix 1 - Glossary of terms used in this report
Appendix 2 - Parties to the Proceedings and counsel
Appendix 3 - List of witnesses and dates of testimony
Diagrams
Tables
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