The health authority's two highest-ranked bureaucrats both stepped down in the space of roughly four weeks.
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The Saskatchewan Health Authority’s two-highest ranking officials have both stepped down in recent weeks for reasons unknown.
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CEO Scott Livingstone, who helped oversee the amalgamation of the province’s 12 former health regions into a single gigantic health authority, is no longer in that position, according to a prepared statement from SHA board chair Arlene Wiks on Thursday.
The notice came roughly an hour after Postmedia asked the SHA if Livingstone remained CEO. Wiks did not say when Livingstone stopped acting in that role, or the reason for his departure.
Postmedia later learned and confirmed that chief operating officer Suann Laurent, the organization’s “second in command,” left her role in late October.
That would leave two major seats to fill for the SHA’s 10-person board. Half its members, including Wiks, were appointed in June.
There had been no prior public announcement of Laurent leaving the authority. Livingstone had taken over her duties in the interim, according to SHA spokesman Doug Dahl, and the role remains vacant.
“The SHA’s Chief Operating Officer retired at the end of October after a long and successful career within our health system. This was announced to leadership teams across the organization,” Dahl said in a statement.
Andrew Will, the SHA’s vice-president of infrastructure, information and support, will serve as interim CEO while the board searches for Livingstone’s replacement.
A pharmacist by training, Livingstone took command of the SHA when it was formed in 2017 after seven years as President and CEO of the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency.
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He was a champion for integrating the disparate parts of Saskatchewan’s health-care system into a cohesive, single authority, an initiative government undertook to streamline services and save costs.
“As CEO, Scott demonstrated a commitment to patient and family centred care and provided stability during a time of substantial change and significant pressures on the health system due to COVID,” Wiks wrote.
The nascent authority, Livingstone said, had inherited 14,000 different policies from its constituent health regions, all of which had to be consolidated and changed by its new board and staff. He talked frequently on the need to integrate services between not just those regions but different branches of government to improve residents’ quality of life.
“The health system has a very, very small impact on the overall health of the population,” Livingstone said in a 2019 interview.
“We have one of the most unhealthy populations in the country. Those outcomes have taken us decades to generate. This is not something that happened in the past five years.”
He also helmed the organization during the COVID-19 pandemic, which he described as a transformational challenge for the health-care system and an opportunity to build back better.
“The overall health of our population is not simply a health-care system issue,” he said in a June interview. “It’s a problem that we all share.”
Livingstone became a regular presence at COVID-19 press briefings, where he spoke passionately about the impact the pandemic had on patients awaiting surgeries and other procedures, and rebuked personal attacks against health-care workers.
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He had not appeared at such briefings in some time. His last public statements were on a Nov. 2 media call hosted by the province’s emergency operations centre.
Premier Scott Moe said his last meeting with Livingstone was in the past two weeks and that he received notice he would step down late last week. He thanked Livingstone for his work and stressed no existing health-care services would be disrupted by his departure.
Moe said he did not know Livingstone’s reasons for stepping down but said he was not forced out or asked to resign.
Livingstone’s messaging on the COVID-19 pandemic’s fourth wave sometimes differed starkly from elected officials. For example, in late September, Livingstone warned medical staff were on the brink of having to decide which patients received life-saving care even as Health Minister Paul Merriman resisted calling for federal aid for beleaguered hospitals.
Moe thanked Livingstone for his service and said the hiring of a new CEO was in the hands of the board.
“His effort throughout this time and guidance and leadership has been appreciated,” Moe said.
Livingstone was also one of the best-compensated public servants in the province. The authority’s 2021 annual report valued his total salary and allowances at $417,729; Laurent’s was listed as $368,069.
This story has been updated with comments from Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe and details about Laurent’s departure.
— With Leader-Post files from Alec Salloum
zvescera@postmedia.com
twitter.com/zakvescera
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2021-12-02 20:15:00Z
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