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.