Premier Hints at More Firings Over Hospital Sterilization Scandal

EDMONTON (CP) – More firings appear to be in the works as the fallout continues from a hospital sterilization scandal that has rocked Alberta’s health care system and forced 3,000 former patients to be tested for HIV and hepatitis.

Premier Ed Stelmach is hinting that senior officials in charge of the East Central Health Authority will be removed in the wake of a scathing report on poor sterilization across the region.

A source close to Stelmach later confirmed that the premier is asking for two senior executives to be fired within days as a new administrator takes control of the health region’s operations.

The government forced the 12-member hospital board to resign this week after the Quality Health Council released a report on poor equipment sterilization at St. Joseph’s General Hospital in Vegreville.

The 25-bed hospital had to be closed in March for weeks to all but emergency patients after reports that instruments were being recirculated with flecks of blood and dead tissue on them.