If nothing else, the announcement from Health Minister Tony Clement late last Friday afternoon that the government was effectively firing the Ottawa Hospital Board was shrewd in its political timing. Political observers call this tossing out the Friday trash. And what a Friday it was! While all eyes were focused on the Premier's testimony at the Walkerton inquiry, the province quietly slipped out a news release around 2pm announcing the turfing of the board. It was something right out of a West Wing script.

Before going further, I should state my up front. I was a member of the Ottawa Hospital Board from April ‘98 until I tendered my resignation in December '99. In short, the majority of my colleagues did clearly not welcome my activist style of questioning management decisions or raising community concerns at the Board table. The detailed reasons for my resignation were outlined in my letter to then Board chairman Nick Mulder, and as a privileged piece of board correspondence, I don't intend to rehash them here.

Now the province's gutting of the 28-member volunteer brings the spotlight back onto the financially troubled Ottawa hospital. To be fair, many of the volunteer trustees have enviable records of community philanthropy and service to our city and region, so they should not be looked upon personally with any contempt or disdain. However, the majority view of the board for over three years was one of more money as the primary, if not the sole avenue, to pursue to solve the Hospital's financial woes.

And in the context of a government at Queen's Park that has put all institutions, boards and agencies - including hospitals, school boards and other community groups - on notice, that deficits will no longer be tolerated, this decision was inevitable.

Over two years ago, the Ottawa Hospital requested an independent operational review to determine where efficiencies could be found and to highlight areas where claims of under-funding could be validated or discarded. A few weeks ago, this review, done by the Hay Group of Management consultants, landed on the Minister's desk in Toronto with an ominous thud.

It was scathing and frank in its language (as reported in this paper over the weekend) concerning the lack of "vision" and absence of governance that the board offered to senior management and the institution in general. This, along with a continued unease with the ballooning hospital deficit (the worst in the province), precipitated the province's actions last week.

With this announcement, speculation has now turned to the future of controversial hospital CEO David Levine. Will he stay? What about his senior management team? And will the new supervisor - all but confirmed to be former provincial Health Minister and past president of the Ontario Hospital Association, Dennis Timbrell - be able to work him Levine and his team?

His colleagues nationwide respect Mr. Levine and I personally had no problems with him as CEO. My prediction is Levine will stay and attempt to protect and keep his team intact: what CEO wouldn't? But with any transition, such as the one the Hospital will undergo, personnel changes are inevitable and indeed some senior staffers may chose different career directions, only time will tell.

If there is one point to be stressed, it is this. The community should not be fearful of this situation. Quality health care will continue to be delivered by nurses, doctors and other allied health professionals across all three campuses of the Ottawa Hospital.

Local elected officials as well as now-former trustees may want to exercise some caution in their remarks and restrain their "supposed" indignation about being fired. The writing was on the wall for the Ottawa Hospital for some time ever since the province went in and did the same thing in Hamilton almost two years ago. Both Hospitals were losing close to $1 million per week and simply funneling more money into them was not an option. A process of constructive change has begun; we should let it run its course.

Sun editor Rick Gibbons pointed out on Sunday that the province could be using this firing as cover for their botching of hospital restructuring in Ottawa, and more generally, across the province. There is some merit in acknowledging this viewpoint. While the Hay report very clearly focuses on governance issues and "problems" with the board, it is equally succinct on where the province has failed the Ottawa hospital.

Our hospital is under-funded relative to its peers across the province. Further still, the cross-border issue of Ontario never compensating the old General Hospital for the loss of revenue when Quebec repatriated many of its patients after opening the Gatineau hospital, remains unresolved for the most part. But these and other issues are also endemic across the province.

The province, given its public pronouncements on accountability had no choice but to intervene by removing the board. Of course the province is not blameless in this scenario and the need Ottawa specific, province-wide and national health care reform persists. We'll touch upon these issues in a column this Saturday.