Otago District Health Board chairman Richard Thomson didn’t accept the invitation to jump so Health Minister Tony Ryall has pushed him
No-one is saying Thomson is responsible for the $17 million fraud for which former ODHB employee Michael Swann and his and business associate Kerry Harford were found gulty last year.
But Ryall is holding him accountable and had he understood his role and responsibilities as chair he’d have resigned before he was sacked.
David Farrar Kiwiblog explains the requirement for accountability at Kiwiblog and in his NBR column.
The letters page of the ODT has had a lot of correspondence on the issue, some of those in support of Thomson point out he was elected to the board, not appointed.
That is irrelevant and just highlights the stupidity of the Clayton’s democracy surrounding DHB elections because, elected or appointed ,health boards and their members are accountable not to their communities but the Minister.
Because he’s elected, Thomson could choose to stay on as a board member now he’s been sacked as chair. But if he didn’t understand why, although he was neither to blame nor responsible for the fraud, he should still have been accountable for it; he’s shown he doesn’t understand the role of the board and to whom it’s answerable.
Tane at The Standard is trying to draw parrallels between this sacking, and Cunliffe’s sacking of the HBDHB. They are two totally different sackings. Ryall has dumped a ministerially appointed Chair – Cunners rode roughshod over the democratically elected DHB,
Anyway, as a Labour toadie, Thompson must have known that he was going to get pushed if he didn’t jump. He and Hodgson are the ones politicising the issue.
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