Winnipeg doctor who endorsed NDP's health-care plan chosen to lead Shared Health's board

Dr. Brian Postl, left, seen in this 2019 file photo, supported the NDP’s pledge to reopen three emergency departments during last fall’s election campaign.

A high-profile doctor who endorsed the Manitoba NDP’s plan to fix the health-care system during the recent election has been selected to lead the board of directors of a provincial health organization that’s occasionally been in the crosshairs of the same party.

Dr. Brian Postl will chair Shared Health, the province announced Wednesday in a news release.

Postl is the former dean and vice-provost of the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba. He’s also served as CEO of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority.

“I recognize what an important task we as health-care leaders have ahead of us and am proud to lend my experience to help lead the work of Shared Health in the coming years,” Postl said in a statement.

“I look forward to working with government to support and improve health-care services for Manitobans.”

The mandate letter to Shared Health — an entity created by the former Progressive Conservative government during its overhaul of the health-care system — asks Postl and his board to embrace a “culture shift that puts patients at the heart of every decision and focuses on solutions over excuses.”

Bureaucracy remains a target

The letter also hints at future changes to Shared Health’s administration by stating that resources should be directed to the front lines “rather than the excessive health care bureaucracy.”

Before last fall’s election, Kinew had promised to cut administration at the organization. The NDP has since walked back that pledge, promising to reduce bureaucratic costs in health care but not singling out Shared Health specifically.

The health authority’s board is also being asked to develop a budget that puts the organization on a “stronger financial footing,” in light of “consistent overspending.”

The government recently launched a financial review of the organizations under its purview that are overspending their budgets, particularly in health care.

Other commitments in the mandate letter reaffirm some of the NDP’s election pledges around health care.

The board is being asked to work with front-line health-care workers to reduce wait times, improve patient experiences and support primary and preventative care.

They’re being asked to add more staffed personal care home beds and to work toward more direct hours of care for seniors.

The board will also be tasked with developing metrics that evaluates its progress on these and other goals and publicly reports the results.

Other new board members are Roustam Souleymanov and Lois Stewart-Archer from Winnipeg, Stacy Senkbeil of Brandon and Melanie MacKinnon of St. Laurent, Man.

Former board chair Brenna Shearer, a previous CEO with Pharmacists Manitoba, is beginning a new three-year term as a board director.

The government ended the term of Brenda Martinussen, chief operating officer of Nurse Next Door, a private home care provider. The Manitoba Health Coalition and a few unions previously called for her removal from the board, saying a private competitor to public home care shouldn’t be on the board of an organization governing that system.