Media

Dr. Webb argued term limits would also help to avoid real and perceived conflicts of interest that can arise when directors make decisions on the work of committees on which they also sit. “There’s something of a conflict where you’ve sat on a committee or worked on a project and here you are now involved in the debate in terms of your own committee.”

“The first change will be to require term rotation for BCMA directors. Their present average of 6 years contains a range from 1 to 23, with half averaging more than a decade. Limiting the terms of ordinary directors to 6 years in 10 will achieve more flow through the Board”

Telephone Town Hall Meeting (audio)

Our message to doctors is, “Pay attention, engage and start making meaningful decisions or forever have health authorities and government do it for you,” said Dr. Webb.

“We hope to tap into the ether of a spirit for change that, according to our feedback, does truly exist in the membership,” Dr. Webb said.

“It’s urgent that we work to make the health-care system more sustainable—but not on the backs of doctors.”

“As an association, we need to be united in trying to get the best possible deal for the profession,” said Dr. Webb, suggesting the way to do that is to resist being separated into factions; to convince the government that all doctors are on the same team.

Our profession is starved of clear direction, objectives, and action. Until we remedy the inequities that pervade our professional practices at the level of hospitals, health authorities, and provinces, we must limit our mandate over societal inequity to that of an interested stakeholder. Let’s not lose sight of the core business issues currently assailing our profession.

Our BCMA Board has not examined what is achieved by annually spending $18 million in mostly members’ dues, or in perpetuating 37 directors costing the membership annually more than $1.2 million. It has not confronted its failure to foster among members the view that 19 acclaimed or vacant Board directorships are worth vying for, or come to grips with more than 40 seldom marshaled vice delegate and nominator positions.

Dr. Webb said reform is something “best left for to the members to decide—keeping contention out of the board room, especially where conflict of interest could be an issue.”

Despite the election of some BCDDF-supported candidates last year, much of the board is made up of long-established, unelected delegates. Dr. Webb expressed concern that such a board “might obfuscate the process.”

Dr. Webb also weighed in: “In my view, this referendum ( as related to 51% member support for a proposed smaller Board ) represents a tipping point. Despite the president, board delegates and two societies powerfully campaigning against our reforms, the majority of the voting membership failed to support their effort.”

And the crux of the piece:

“Given the unequal capacity of two members to communicate across the entire profession, this vote with 51% of the voting membership supporting change is a clear indicator that a large part of the membership is unhappy with the way in which the BCMA represents them.”

According to Drs. Webb and Busser, nominations for CMA committee positions are not done transparently, and doctors across the province were neither consulted nor invited to take part.

They commented:

“To bill a BCMA process as ‘transparent’ absent communication that positions are available, any description of the process and criteria for selection, or disclosure of the result, is utterly ridiculous.”

“As far as the general members—(those) who care are concerned—there are a dozen or so on the board who are out of touch, and are being slowly displaced,” Dr. Webb said, adding new doctors aren’t represented by the old guard.