And while the discord with the utility unions is one headache for the Barrow administration, the Western Regional is like a gaping wound. The catalogue of all that has gone wrong at that hospital just continues to grow. But who is the blame? The Hospital and Regional administrator points to a dilapidated 40 year old building on the ground floor that is open to rats. But yesterday health minister Pablo Marin gave CTV-3 a very different narrative; he told them that it's the hospital manager who didn't spend the rate extermination money the right way - he did that after making the bizarre suggestion that someone may have put the rat in the incubator:
Hon. Pablo Marin, Minister of Health
"I went personally the following day to see what happened. I don't want to blame anyone in this particular situation, but the incubator is nearly tight-sealed for anything, any animal to enter. If the animal was trying to enter, you would see some bite at where it supposed to go in. You supposed to see maybe some kind of hair attached to the particular entry. Nothing like that was there, but the rat was inside."
Reporter
"Are you suggesting that one of the employees placed the rat inside the incubator?"
Hon. Pablo Marin, Minister of Health
"No. I am not saying that. I am saying that there was no evidence showing where the rat went in. That is what I am saying. I also mentioned to you that it could happen. The rat was in there. So the rat was inside the incubator. Now the thing is why is it the administrators are not doing their job. And I want to know what public service will do now about this situation."
Reporter
"Have you seen the video of the rat in the incubator? What do you think about it?"
Hon. Pablo Marin, Minister of Health
"It's terrible and sad."
Dr. Peter Allen - CEO, Ministry of Health
"The situation is outrageous as far as we are concerned. What the ministry was doing already was that we have formed a special committee with the management committee of the regional hospital."
Reporter
"Do you believe that the responsibility should fall on your feet since you are the minister of health and buck literally stops at you?"
Hon. Pablo Marin, Minister of Health
"There are two things; sometimes the media mention that we are micromanaging and if we go inside every time you will say we are micromanaging. You give time for the managers to their jobs. I can tell you we have one of our friends and her mom was one of the managers here, Nurse Heredia, and everything was cleaned. You have to love your job. If you walk around, you go around the places, you will see that the place is clean. It's the managers' responsibility to look at their working environment. If you go to your house and your house have rats and whatever, it is your fault. It is not the minister fault. Although I have public health inspectors to go and try to remove the garbage around the areas that infested. That is what is the situation; our managers are supposed to start to love their jobs and be accountable for what they are doing."
Reporter
"You blaming the manager at the Western Regional Hospital?"
Hon. Pablo Marin, Minister of Health
"Definitely I am blaming the managers. I am hoping, because I have brought it up already, that I wish that all managers be in contract, so that the day you don't do your job we can fire you immediately. But because of public service regulations it is hard for us to do that."
Reporter
"So when will the manager and deputy be suspended or fired?"
Hon. Pablo Marin, Minister of Health
"Let's ask that to the Public Service Commission."
Reporter
"Again, I have to ask, even though they are the managers, do you feel that you should take some sort of responsibility?"
Hon. Pablo Marin, Minister of Health
"That's why I went there and spoke to my public health inspector from the ministry for us to start to look at it, write them up and bring the managers to the department and tell them, tell me what are you doing in your hospital."
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