Agree or disagree?
How many vice presidents does it take to run the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority? Ten, according to the WRHA’s compensation disclosure act report released Wednesday.
That’s right, on top of all the community and regional directors, executive directors, middle managers and public relations hacks, the WRHA needs 10 vice presidents to run its affairs.
Or at least it thinks it does.
They’re all very well paid, too, with two cashing in salaries of more than $200,000 a year and one taking in more than $300,000 annually.
Even senior deputy ministers who run large departments in the provincial government don’t make that kind of dough. Most deputy ministers make between $130,000 and $160,000.
But apparently at the WRHA, money is no option when it comes to funding one of the most bloated bureaucracies around.
Former WRHA CEO Brian Postl retired from the health authority but cashed in his final $450,340 in 2010, the top paid bureaucrat at the WRHA last year.
Brock Wright was the WRHA’s top-paid vice president last year. He finished second on the fat cat list, taking in a cool $334,556.
Catherine Cook was the WRHA’s second highest paid vice president last year, with a salary of $227,603. That’s up a staggering 23% from what she was paid in 2008. A 23% raise in two years. Must be nice.
Cook is the VP for aboriginal health. Not sure why we need a VP for aboriginal health. Do aboriginal people require different health care than people of other races?
The funny thing is that not all 10 vice presidents even make it onto the WRHA’s top 20 highest paid bureaucrat list.
That’s because there are so many other CEOs, CAOs, COOs, CIOs and CHROs who make the same or even more money than the 10 VPs.
What you have to remember is that 15 years ago, the WRHA didn’t even exist and we still ran hospitals and long-term care facilities.
We were told when regional health authorities were set up that the bureaucrats working in individual hospitals would be amalgamated into one central authority.
It never happened. Even Health Sciences Centre, which was officially taken over by the WRHA several years ago, still has a chief operating officer who pulled in $283,294 last year.
Government has created, and vastly expanded, a new level of bureaucracy without adding any tangible value to the health care system. Wait times are still excruciatingly long.
Patients still line emergency room hallways. And health care costs continue to eat up an increasingly larger share of the provincial budget.
So where’s the added value?
Government has created an empire-building beast that has an insatiable appetite to grow, largely for self-preservation reasons. The most effective way for a government bureaucracy to survive is to grow by adding more and more senior officials, middle-managers, supervisors and team leaders. You start small and you keep adding. You begin with a few floors in an office building and you expand it to seven floors. Then you build your own office building so you can house even more vice-presidents, directors, regional directors and information officers.
Which is exactly what the WRHA has done. And the bigger and stronger it is, the harder it is to knock down.
Just the way they like it.
TOP 20 FAT CAT BUREAUCRATS — WRHA 2010
1- Brian Postl (CEO, retired) —$450,340
2- Brock Wright (VP-chief medical officer) —$334,556
3- Adam Topp (COO, Health Sciences Centre) — $283,294
4- Arlene Wilgosh (CEO) — $267,140
5- Catherine Cook (VP aboriginal health) — $227,693
6- Milton Sussman (COO, VP long-term care) — $207,596
7- Gloria O’Rourke (VP chief human resources officer) — $207,225
8- Paul Kochan (VP finance) — $196,595
9 – Real Cloutier (COO, VP long-term care) — $194,091
10-Roger Girard (chief information officer) — $192,784
11- Harry Schultz (chief innovation officer) — $179,580
12-Lori Lamont (VP chief nursing officer) — $178,515
13- John Van Massenhoven (VP, chief human resources officer) — $162,078
14- Heather Reichert (MB Health secondment) — $150,801
15- Glenn McLennan (exec. dir. planning & corp services) — $150,407
16- Rodger Guinn (chief enterprise resource planning) — $147,356
17- Mark Torchia (dir. advanced technologies) — $147,356
18- Dana Erickson (VP & CAO) — $147,216
19- Douglas Spilchuk (dir. payroll) — $144,671
20- Guy Gagne (chief planning & facility management officer) — $144,645
— WRHA 2010 Public Sector Compensation Disclosure Act Report
