Report into Ornge leaked by committee member
The official, but previously unpublished, report into Ornge, the air ambulance provider to the state of Ontario, Canada, has been leaked by Frank Klees, a member of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts that conducted a two-year investigation into the organisation amid a widely broadcast scandal that focussed on issues such as the high salary of its former president and CEO, Dr Chris Mazza.
The official, but previously unpublished, report into Ornge, the air ambulance provider to the state of Ontario, Canada, has been leaked by Frank Klees, a member of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts that conducted a two-year investigation into the organisation amid a widely broadcast scandal that focussed on issues such as the high salary of its former president and CEO, Dr Chris Mazza. According to Klees, the Ontario parliament’s Public Accounts Committee signed off the report on 1 May, and it was scheduled to be tabled in the legislature on 5 May. Klees, a Progressive Conservative member of the Ontario provincial parliament, alleges that the ruling Liberal party deliberately timed an election for 12 June, with prior dissolution of parliament on 2 May, in order to prevent the report being made public until after the election, as it contains findings unfavourable to the Liberals.
The report, which is marked ‘confidential’ but can now be downloaded from www.frank-klees.on.ca, contains 95 specific concerns that relate directly to decisions made at the most senior levels in the Ministry of Health, said Klees, that include: the failure of the minister to respond to repeated warnings about Ornge mismanagement and health and safety risks; the lack of an oversight branch for the air ambulance service whose director and staff have no experience in either air or land ambulance; and the ministry’s failure to properly exercise oversight responsibilities. Klees added: “The report is very explicit that the flawed delivery model conceived by Chris Mazza that puts the aviation operations of the air ambulance system into the hands of Ornge is unsustainable.”
From 2012 to 2014, the Committee heard from 85 witnesses over 40 days of hearings totalling 147 hours. The hearings followed the publication by the Ontario Auditor General of the Special report: Ornge Air Ambulance and related services in March 2012. Strikingly, the Committee states in the report that its work ‘was compromised by contradictory and inconsistent testimony provided by certain witnesses during the 2012-2014 hearings’, adding: “Witnesses providing less than forthright testimony included staff from the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, current and former Ornge employees, members of the former board of directors, standing agreement carriers’ representatives, and various professionals.”
Specific criticism is levelled at Mazza, who, says the report, ‘drove Ornge the air ambulance programme into the ground, leaving very little to build on for the future while staff attempted to deliver core services’. Among other concerns, the Committee notes that Mazza, who was described by one witness as ‘a complex individual with stresses in his personality’, was allowed to charge Ornge for attending board meetings over and above the ‘excessive’ compensation received through his salary, stipends and loans (in total, between 2005 and 2012 Mazza’s compensation ran to around $9.4 million, says the report). The Committee also expresses concern that former board chair, Rainer Beltzner, who was previously an accountant at KPMG, claimed in the hearings that he was not aware of various payments made to Mazza such as a $400,000 medical stipend. The report notes that Ornge is currently suing Mazza over a $500,000 loan, while Mazza is suing Ornge in turn claiming $1 million in unpaid bonuses. Overall, the report questions the board’s effectiveness in reviewing management decisions, saying: “The Committee is concerned about the lack of professionalism demonstrated in the relationship between Ornge’s Board and management.”
While fault was found in the management and oversight of Ornge, the Committee also acknowledged the commitment of the organisation’s personnel in providing ambulance services to Ontarians in a challenging environment.
Ornge responded to the publication of the report by Klees, saying: “In the two years since the Committee began its hearings, Ornge has undergone significant change. We have a new senior leadership team and volunteer board of directors, with each individual bringing diverse expertise to the task. We have reached out to our frontline staff for input on a wide variety of matters affecting our operations, including patient care and safety. We have introduced a number of measures to improve transparency and accountability. We have refocused the organisation on providing high quality medical transport services to the patients of this province. Simply put, we are a very different organisation today and have made considerable strides toward improving all aspects of our operation.”