Lab chief had to go: Eastern Health

The head of the largest health authority in Newfoundland and Labrador insisted Friday that a resigning manager was told to quit orbe moved out.

Eastern Health CEO Vickie Kaminski also admitted Friday that she expects more senior staff to resign from management roles, evidently in protest of a crackdown on key medical staff.

Two more physicians resigned from posts on Friday, and Kaminski said she expects more internal fallout at the authority, which has been struggling to restore public confidence in its laboratory tests and clinical services.

Kaminski had announced Dr. Nash Denic's resignation as laboratory chief earlier this week, amid a furor over testing errors involving the immunosuppressant drug cyclosporine.

Sources told CBC News that Denic had actually tendered his resignation in December, largely over workload issues, and that he is upset about being made a scapegoat by Eastern Health and by Health Minister Jerome Kennedy.

Kaminski told reporters Friday afternoon that Denic wastold this week he must either resign or be forced out of his job supervising the authority's labs.

She confirmed that Denic had offered to resign in December, but had been persuaded to stay on. She said that Denic had informed her at the time that he was not happy with problems he was having in managing the lab.

She said Denic's leadership, though, was flagged last month in a critical internal report that identified failures among several staff members to follow protocol in reporting adverse events.

"The review clearly indicated that Dr. Denic did not follow proper procedure" by promptly notifying senior managers, including Kaminski herself, she said.

"We told him at that time that we would give him the choice he could, in fact, have us accept his resignation from December, or he could voluntarily step aside, and that it would be effective immediately. He chose to let his resignation from December stand," she told reporters.

"We attempted to let him walk away with some dignity."

On Wednesday, Denic's resignation was announced while Kennedy warned senior managers that their jobs were on the line and thathe expected the health care system to live up to a higher standard of accountability.

On Thursday, two laboratory site chiefs resigned their management roles at the Health Sciences Centre and St. Clare's Hospital, both in St. John's. Dr. Ford Elms and Dr. Don Cook were reported to be upset with how the Denic case was managed.

Kaminski said a review recommended the site management positionsbe phased out amid a reorganization of the lab. She added both Elms and Cook understood"that those roles were going to be eliminated anyhow."

There are more signs of internal turmoil at Eastern Health, with the resignations Friday of two physicians who have stepped away from certain roles at the authority.

The two latest resignations alsoinvolvepathologists. One is the only pathologist in the province specializing in breast cancer pathology, and he will be scaling back the scope of his practice, Kaminski said. The otherhas resigned a post on an internal quality committee.

Kaminski told the public to expect to hear of more dissatisfaction at the authority, and acknowledged morale is low.

"I would not be surprised to see more of this type of action in the ensuing days," she said.

Staff with Toronto's University Health Network, she said, have agreed to step in and assist Eastern Health with the provision of any services it needs.

UHN is already in the midst of conducting its own review of laboratory services at Eastern Health.

The authority'scredibility has been contentious for years, particularly since revelations in 2007 that the authority had downplayed the seriousness of lab errors involving hundreds of breast cancer patients.

Those revelations led to a judicial inquiry, chaired by Justice Margaret Cameron, who last year recommended sweeping changes to lab services and the management culture at Eastern Health.