Exodus of ALBERTA's public health leaders reveals a sad reality

19.jun.08
Globe and Mail
Andre Picard

In the coming weeks, Alberta will lose its top public health officials.
The contracts of Karen Grimsrud, the acting provincial health officer,
Gloria Keays, the deputy provincial health officer, and Ameet Singh, a
consultant on infectious disease, are not being renewed. (A fourth
senior official, Shainoor Virani, left earlier in the year.)
The mass departure of the province's senior public health leadership is
an unmitigated disaster, and doubly so because the real reason is a
mystery.
Regarding the three who are about to leave, Ron Liepert, Alberta's
Minister of Health and Wellness, has said that: a) their pay demands
were unreasonable; b) they have taken jobs elsewhere; and c) the massive
upheavals in the ministry had no role in the affair.
Put bluntly, Mr. Liepert has suggested they are greedy mercenaries,
which is scurrilous nonsense.
The trio are not jumping ship to get big bucks elsewhere. Nobody goes
into public health for money. But, yes, Dr. Grimsrud and her colleagues
will be snapped up gleefully by other jurisdictions because there is a
severe shortage of qualified public health officials in Canada.