More than four years after her government did away with the Nova Scotia Health board of directors, Health Minister Michelle Thompson says there are no plans to bring it back in the foreseeable future.

“We appreciate at some point that there are probably changes coming but they’re just not imminent,” Thompson said in an interview Thursday at Province House.

Thompson said the government needs to maintain the curret setup because of the agility it creates to move things along “in a respectful way, a way that is captured under the Hospitals Act.”

When Premier Tim Houston and the Progressive Conservatives first formed government in 2021, they dismissed the board and CEO, replacing the configuration with an administrator and interim CEO.

NDP health critic Rod Wilson, a medical doctor, said the lack of a board means there is not proper oversight of the health authority, an organization with a budget of about $3.3 billion.

‘That’s not governance’

Thompson said that senior officials from the health authority periodically tour the province to hear directly from people in different communities, but Wilson said that’s not the same thing as having a board.

“That’s not governance and there’s a huge difference between asking people what they think and being accountable to what they think,” he said in an interview.

Interim Liberal Leader Iain Rankin said not having a board reduces the independence of the health authority and takes away the potential to have “a wide breadth of expertise involved in decision-making.”

“That means regionally, that means from different cultural backgrounds and I think it just increases the chance that politics is inserted in the operations of a massive organization,” he told CBC News.

Future of interim CEO unclear

When Houston dismissed the health authority’s board and CEO, Dr. Brendan Carr, he appointed Karen Oldfield as interim CEO. Oldfield, a lawyer and former CEO of the Halifax Port Authority who once worked for former premier John Hamm, has held that interim tag ever since.

Oldfield’s contract is set to expire at the end of the month. On Wednesday, Houston was noncommittal about whether he wanted her to continue in the job.

“Those are all discussions to be had, but I think she’s done an incredible job and I think she’s a good person that cares about the province,” the premier told reporters.

Thompson would not tell reporters whether the government is considering other options for the head of the organization. Oldfield has been off the job since last month, using a combination of vacation time and unpaid leave.

Concerns about unsustainable spending

During an appearance before the legislature’s public accounts committee in January, Oldfield cautioned that health spending across the country has become uncontrollable in the face of infrastructure and service demands.

The budget before the legislature includes a 12.3 per cent increase for the Health Department.

Rankin said he’s concerned the leadership configuration at the health authority leaves it subject to political interference and compromises transparency.

But Thompson said people should not be concerned.

Measuring standards

She said she has monthly meetings with the administrator, Chris Power, and Oldfield, and costs of the organization are scrutinized.

She said the government doesn’t get involved with the operational side of the health authority, “although the initiatives and the transformation work that we’ve done we’ve really had to do tightly together to understand capacity in the system, to understand where the investments are best utilized.”

“But the work of the department really is not only around the funding but the evaluation of programs and making sure that standards are met or the introduction of different standards.”

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