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Health centre advisor defends record

“It’s my appearance that makes people nervous. Inside I’m a nice guy.”

JANE GEORGE

Marty Croituru

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But Croituru said the group responsible for the petition has never approached him personally to voice their complaints, although “anyone can walk in and ask what’s going on.”

And he said the personal nature of the attacks hurt him.

“It most certainly is hurtful, and it is disappointing more than anything else that people in our profession, the health and social services, would actually resort to that kind of a method. It’s contrary to what we do,” he said. “We’re supposed to be helpful, constructive, and catalysts for change and making things better.”

Some staff members claim that things have gone from bad to worse at Inuulitsivik under Croituru’s term as advisor, calling the current management a “dictatorship:” “We want the hospital we used to have before,” they say.

Those behind the petition say they want to keep their names out of the newspaper because “we know we will have terrible problems, harassment, warnings and fear of losing our jobs and that our family will be targeted”: “People are afraid of the administration,” they say.

In a telephone interview, Croituru admitted that his personal appearance is intimidating. Croituru, a large man, is a former wrestler and karate practitioner.

“It’s just an appearance,” he said. “Inside I’m a nice guy. It’s my appearance that makes people nervous. What’s unfortunate is that they don’t come to me and say anything. I hope some day people will ask me what kind of person I am, because I’m certainly not anything people have been saying.”

Croituru said Inuulitsivik is in the midst of a huge reorganization, trying to provide better, cost-effective services.

Croituru said he knows that jobs in the health and social services in Nunavik are tough and intense in the best of times, and that asking people to change and do their jobs differently is hard.

“I would love to sprinkle something that would make everybody happy again,” he said. “I’m not quite sure what that is, except more transparency and more communication, which is what there never was before. Transition is difficult.”

Croituru said he arrived in Nunavik as a crisis intervention counsellor in 1990s. He owns a security company and worked within Quebec’s health and social service network for 24 years as a manager for different programs. He was contracted as a consultant to Inuulitsivik until March 2005, when the board created the executive advisor position.

Croituru said he just follows the board’s directives and doesn’t get involved in “day-to-day stuff” unless he’s asked.

But it’s clear many employees at Inuulitsivik hold him responsible for an announcement made earlier this year that major cutbacks in services were necessary to lower Inuulitsivik’s accumulated deficit.

Staff were told reductions are necessary because if the cutbacks were not brought in, Quebec’s health department, le Ministère de la santé et des services sociaux, would step in, put the hospital under receivership, and then recommend even more severe measures.

Inuulitisivik provides health and social services to seven Hudson Bay communities in Nunavik and operates nursing stations, a 25-bed hospital in Puvirnituq, a mental health centre in Inukjuak, and a youth group home in Purvirnituq.

Inuulitsivik’s accumulated deficit was $27 million in 1999-2000. It now stands at about $59 million.

The unhappy workers claim Croituru is still spending too much money on expenses and purchases during this period of enforced budgetary restraint. “We thought we had a deficit here; they are cutting the services to the community, but [have] no restraints for spending money on travel,” they say.

Croituru said Inuulitsivik’s top management travels a lot, but that travel expenses are actually down.

“We are making great efforts this year to reduce that deficit. We’re on a downward swing now,” Croituru said.

The workers also say “there are more non-Inuit workers than before,” but Croituru disputes this, saying the numbers haven’t dropped and that the board is trying to fill all vacant management positions with Inuit.

He said plans are well underway to move all administrative positions for payroll and accounting, which have been in Montreal for several years, back to Puvirnituq.

The workers also cite an increase in number of sick leaves because of stressful working conditions as well as growing unrest at the Module du nord, which supplies support in Montreal to patients and escorts from Nunavik: “It is not just a hospital problem. It is a community problem,” they say.

Croituru said he couldn’t comment on the number of individuals on sick leave, but said the board recently named Lisa Watt to the Module du nord management team as way of improving patient services.

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