Opposition calls for Gaétan Barrette to step down over CHUM resignations

Opposition parties called on Quebec's health minister, Gaétan Barrette, to quit on Friday after the top administrator and several board members at Montreal's French-language university health centre, the CHUM, resigned over what they call bullying and interference.

• Pierre Turgeon resigns as head of CHUM

CHUM's director-general, Jacques Turgeon, and the chairman of the board, Jean-Claude Deschênes, both announced their resignations at a news conference Friday.

In a statement issued late Friday afternoon, a CHUM spokesperson said other board members also quit today, without giving a specific number.

Turgeon and Deschênes accuse Barrette of repeated interference in the hospitals governance, particularly in personnel matters.

Deschênes outlined his concerns in a scathing resignation letter addressed to Barrette.

"My decision is due to your insistence and repeated interventions in the last months that in no way reflect the rules of governance that I have defended for 30 years. You have presented all this under the false cover that it's for the good of the institution. It's unacceptable bullying."

Barrette maintains he did nothing wrong.  He says he only intervened after hearing repeated concerns from staff members at the CHUM about chronic administrative dysfunction.

"I did not intervene in the affairs of CHUM before people put on my table documents and problems that had to be addressed."

Barrette says he will now deploy an "intervention team" to the CHUM to try to get to the bottom of what he called "internal quarrels".

Both Quebec's Federation of Medical Specialists and the Association of Health Care Institutions condemned Barrette's interference in personnel matters at the CHUM.

All three opposition parties at the National Assembly called on Barrette to resign Friday.

"He didn't keep the appropriate distance he should be keeping from such decisions," said PQ MNA Diane Lamarre.

Speaking from Paris where he's on a diplomatic visit, Premier Philippe Couillard said he has full confidence in Barrette.

Couillard called the resignations at the CHUM "not pleasant", but he added, "Dr. Barrette has a very vigorous personality. That's why we need him."