New chief of staff appointed at K.H.M.H.

At the center of government’s plan to overhaul the health system is the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital. After months of washing the facility’s dirty laundry in public, doctors at the three year old institution have succeeded in ousting the medical chief of staff. The doctors say they were not happy with the way Dr. Hugh Sanchez carried out the business of administering the hospital, and when the quarrel spilled over into the local press, Permanent Secretary Wayne Usher was called in to mediate. Usher told News Five that it was nothing more than an unfortunate clash of personalities.

Wayne Usher, P.S., Ministry of Health

“The chief of staff at the time, Dr. Sanchez, has a style of management where he is very firm in his management and that is a good thing because firmness is required when we work in a service oriented environment such as the Karl Heusner. You cannot play around with peoples’ lives. That institution has a serious undertaking to provide good quality health care. So Dr. Sanchez is bent on making sure that the best health care is given in that institution. He has the attitude of getting the work done and he’s firm on that and we support that.

So it is really just about personality – some personalities not really agreeing with how Dr. Sanchez does his management. But his style is one of getting the work done and not playing about. And we are into serious business and we support that.”

Q: “A group of doctors had called for his removal. Is that a no, no, are you saying?”

Wayne Usher

“No, that’s not really what happened. They had asked for an audience with the Director of Health Services and myself to see if we could iron out some of the differences between what they see as Dr. Sanchez’s style of management and how we see his style of management.

So what I had to do was meet with the doctors, meet with Dr. Sanchez and sort of mediate between the two spectrums where he has a style of management and some doctors are saying, I don’t really like that style of management cause we have a different style. But that has worked out.”

According to Usher the situation worked itself out when last week, Dr. Sanchez resigned from the post of Medical Chief of staff. That post has now been given to Surgeon John Waight. Sanchez goes back to being a government pathologist.