By Sarah Stone

Health board changes policy, special meetings need public notice

Mar 26, 2015 | 7:18 AM

In light of the recent attention from the public concerning how the Prince Albert Parkland Health Authority handles special board meetings, some revisions have been made.

At Wednesday’s regular health board meeting, the board chose to change its policy to require public notification ahead of all special board meetings.

“With special board meetings the board has opted to require that meeting notices be made public within the region and Saskatchewan, once notice has been given to our board members,” explained CEO of the Prince Albert Parkland Health Region (PAPHR) Cecile Hunt after the board meeting.

Regular board meetings require seven days’ notice, but that much time may not necessarily be given ahead of the special meetings depending on each meeting.

“We always know that the board may be required to have a special board meeting for urgent or pressing issues that perhaps it needs three days’ notice or two days’ notice,” she said, explaining that could be in case a fire or unanticipated service concerns.

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“The board wanted to ensure it could meet quite quickly, but recognize we need to ensure that our public is made aware of the special board meeting.”

The dates of these meetings and resulting materials will be posted the same way as regular board meetings, she said. This includes posting the information on the PAPHR website and informing media partners of dates.

Before Wednesday’s decision, Hunt said, the Regional Health Services Act was “silent” around special board meetings.

“I think the perception of lack of transparency have led the board to rethink its policy to ensure that there’s greater transparency,” she said.

Looking back at public concern about transparency over the board’s decision to award the 22-unit housing complex to an out-of-city company, she said they followed policy at the time.

“I think that we followed past practice and I think that the fact that the health region issued a press release the next morning was an attempt to ensure there was transparency around the decision,” she said, adding the Prince Albert Construction Association was made aware of the meeting.  “So while our efforts at our transparency may not have been perfect, there was an attempt to ensure the individuals affected by the decision were aware of the meeting.”

She said most special meetings are called to discuss a certain issue or topic.  She estimated the board calls one or two special meetings a year.

“[They’re] often short meetings that needed some timely attention and … now the changes to the board policy, they’ll be public notification and our media partners will be notified in the same way as we historically have done,” she said.

Just by coincidence, the policy review of special board meetings was supposed to be addressed on Wednesday based on a schedule set every year. However, “the board, indeed, takes concerns expressed very seriously and would certainly have discussed the concerns that we’ve seen in the press.”

sstone@panow.com

On Twitter: @sarahstone84