The former chair of the Yukon Hospital Corp.'s board of trustees says the problems with the facility currently coming to light publicly are just the 'tip of the iceberg.'

'It has been the tip of the iceberg for two or three years,' says Marny Ryder, who served as the chair for four years. 'Not sufficient funding, poor communication, the whole thing. It's just bubbled up.'

The Yukon Medical Association and the Yukon Registered Nurses Association have publicly stated there are staffing shortages at the hospital and the territory as a whole is at a crisis point.

Hospital CEO Michael Aeberhardt, however, has maintained there isn't a problem.

'There's that ongoing tug and pull,' says Ryder. 'It doesn't sound very good right now, does it?'

Ryder says she became increasingly distressed about the hospital after former Health minister Peter Jenkins left the Yukon Party in November 2005 and Brad Cathers was named to the portfolio.

The last four months before she resigned from the board in November 2006 were even worse, she says.

'When Peter left, the relationship started to go downhill and it went steadily downhill from there.'

The board wasn't ever informed of the government's plans to turn the Thomson Centre into a residential care facility until it was published in the newspaper last August, she says.

The announcement came after the board had already spent almost three years planning to turn the building into an alcohol and drug treatment centre.

Ryder adds it was the board's understanding the government did not own the Thomson Centre and didn't have the authority to make the decision on what to do with it.

The hospital corporation owns the land the centre is on and at some point the building was transferred to the hospital corporation, she says.

A drug and alcohol treatment centre seemed to make sense, she says. There were many problems with the crumbling Thomson Centre's physical structure, including poor ventilation systems, an insufficient communications system and the building not being earthquake-proof.

It didn't make sense to have long-term patients there, she says.

The lack of communication with Cathers became even more apparent when Ryder's one-year term as chair expired on July 1, 2006 but she didn't hear from the minister until the end of the month neither confirming or denying her reappointment but simply stating the government was looking for 'renewed leadership' in its chair.

Ryder continued her role as chair and the board requested a meeting with Cathers to discuss what was happening with the position after no one was immediately appointed.

The meeting never occurred, says Ryder. The next thing the board heard was that Yukon Party campaign manager Craig Tuton was appointed to serve as chair the day before Premier Dennis Fentie dropped the writ for last October's territorial election.

The board again heard the announcement through the media and not from the government, says Ryder.

'When Mr. Tuton came in as chair, I wasn't happy with the way things were going and I didn't want to serve out another two years on the board and be the voice of dissent. That's not the way a board should work,' she says.

'The leadership that Mr. Tuton provides to the board is not my style of leadership. I believe that we all speak with one voice. You lead by example.'

Though Ryder's fourth one-year term as chair had expired, she was entitled to sit on the board for two more years. She resigned Nov. 12, 2006.

Her letter, sent to Cathers, the board, and Speaker Ted Staffen, indicated she had concerns with communication with the Health minister and the alleged lack of fiduciary responsibility and fiscal accountability on the part of the board and the hospital's senior management.

Citizens were being told by Yukon Party candidates during the election that '...the board and management of the hospital had run the operation so seriously into debt that strong action had to be taken,' says Ryder.

That information was not being shared publicly and represented a breach of confidentiality, says Ryder.

The hospital, however, is in 'deep financial trouble,' says Ryder, and was for the four years she served as chair.

'It's always in deep financial trouble. It's like any other hospital in Canada. Costs are spiralling, the cost of fuel. There's so many things. The cost of chemo drugs.'

Part of the problem is the base budget of the hospital needs to be reviewed and it hasn't been, she says.

'It was sort of operate on the base budget and if you need more, come back.' Well, you can't do that forever. You need some kind of certainty,' she adds.

'You need to have certainty when you're hiring permanent staff and paying benefits like that.'

As it is, there isn't enough money to pay out the benefits needed to maintain a permanent staff and not just part-time, casual people, she says.

It's among a series of problems at Whitehorse General, says Ryder.

'There was the ongoing problems of the hospital being used as a chronic care facility.'

Between 10 and 11 beds were being used by chronic care patients when they should have been elsewhere, she says.

There may be up to 49 acute care beds available in the hospital, Ryder adds, but some of the rooms would be used as nursing offices because the staff had nowhere else to go.

'The funding needs to be there. We need to do something about the emergency department at the hospital. We need to do something about the staffing,' she says.

Ryder also was on the recruiting committee for the hospital's new CEO after Ron Browne resigned.

She says a lot of work was being done recruit a new CEO so the position wouldn't be vacant for long.

'There were too many problems on the table. You couldn't leave the senior management staff at the hospital without a CEO and having to deal with the pension problem, with the Thomson Centre, with the old transfer of the ambulance staff and all that sort of thing. This was all on the table all at once.'

Ryder had informed Cathers in May 2006 she would be willing to stay on the recruiting committee even if her term as chair of the board came to an end. But she received no response and when she received the letter from Cathers looking for 'renewed leadership', she felt it best to step back from that committee as well.

She took part in the first part of Aeberhardt's recruitment and though she thought he would be a competent CEO, he had 'no commitment whatsoever to the Yukon.

'Mr. Aeberhardt made it very clear from the beginning that he was here for three years and this was a stepping-stone to other things. His family have not moved up. He stays here for X amount of time and then he flies out for a couple of weeks.'

That demonstrates his level of commitment, she says, and it is being reflected in stories being heard from the hospital now.

'I think the staff knows that, the doctors know that.'

Ryder says during her four years on the board there was an excellent working relationship with the minister, medical staff, nursing staff, senior management and the public.

'I am just so distressed right now to see this crumbling and it doesn't have to,' she says. 'One of the things that I find most distressing right now, and I wouldn't have even been sitting in that room today, had I not been terribly concerned about the whole issue of the doctors fighting the CEO and the nurses recruitment and all those problems surfacing right now.'

The public has a right to know about what's occurring inside the walls of the hospital, she says.

'It's your hospital. It's not just my hospital or their hospital. This is our hospital. This is a community hospital. The people in the Yukon are proud to have a wonderful hospital.'

Liberal Leader Arthur Mitchell brought Ryder's story to the floor of the legislative assembly Wednesday.

He says it demonstrates the arrogance of the Yukon Party government.

'This is a major change in direction (with the Thomson Centre) and the minister doesn't even talk to the board so much for his claims of a good working relationship,' says Mitchell.

Cathers maintained in the legislature that the Thomson Centre is a government asset.

'The issue of the operation of the hospital corporation is a very serious matter,' Cathers says.

Addressing the pension shortfall at the hospital was one of the first tasks he took on after becoming minister, he adds. The $17-million government contribution over the next decade represents the commitment to act in the interest of the hospital's employees, Cathers says.

'In this case, it is clear, our minister, Minister Cathers is doing a magnificent job as minister for Health and Social Services. He takes his job very seriously; he's dedicated,' Fentie told the Star.

The Health portfolio is the toughest in government, says Fentie.

He adds Tuton was chosen to be chair of the hospital board because of his credentials, experience and demonstrated ability to get out of deficit as he did in his position as chair of the Yukon Workers' Compensation Health and Safety Board.

'We felt that under the circumstances, we needed to make a choice to put someone in the position of chair at the board to further assist.'

Fentie wouldn't comment on Ryder's statements about her experience with the board and the hospital.

'Anyone in this territory is entitled to an opinion.'

If the board or CEO has any concerns about the hospital, it should bring them forward to government, he says.

'The bottom line here is that the board and the CEO are responsible for running the affairs of the hospital. Not the government. When there's problems in the area of the hospital corporation, the government will act accordingly where we're obligated.'

Aeberhardt is out of the territory for the next two weeks and declined to comment.

Tuton did not return phone calls from the Star in time for today's publication.