Steve’s way

I didn’t know Steve Koning well—but the part I knew I admired, immensely.

Steve was a collector of stamps and for years we had set aside incoming envelopes to feed his pastime. He would tell me about folks with whom he traded. Some aspired simply to acquire a stamp and post mark from every postal station in the country— others sought to explore world culture and its proclivities through its postal currency.

While I couldn’t honestly comprehend his enthusiasm for his chosen diversion, I rather enjoyed our occasional discussions ranging from renewable energy, municipal finances, the local hospital or the ice on West Lake. He was intrigued and animated by the absurdity that we sometimes find in life around us.

My favourite memory of Steve goes back to the days when QHC administrators were at war with Prince Edward County. The managers of the hospital corporation in the middle of the last decade despised the voices from the County. Though just a small part of the catchment area of the corporation reaching up to Bancroft, County representatives dominated the discussion and the membership. More than 75 per cent of the hospital membership dues were paid and exercised, often vocally, by County residents.

Since amalgamation this community has worried that Prince Edward County Memorial Hospital would be choked off to feed the growing appetite of the hospital in Belleville. It was a fear stoked by successive cuts to services and programs in Picton and fuelled by annual budget shortfalls.

It was during one particularly testy annual meeting at the Alhambra Centre—an oddly situated banquet facility, tucked behind some rather tough looking homes backing the railway tracks on the eastern edge of Belleville—that marked the beginning of the end for management of the hospital corporation.

When it came time for questions, there were plenty—mostly anxious residents from the County eager to impress upon management and the hospital board that this hospital, though small, was vital to the well-being of this community—measured in a variety of ways.

But that wasn’t Steve’s way. He had doubts about management and the board’s ability to understand its own business. He saw in their obtuse and confrontational approach a weakness in the character of the organization. But that isn’t what he said.

Instead he asked about a large pension plan liability identified on the hospital corporation’s balance sheet. The chief financial officer had no answer. The chair started to answer, but after a few mumbled sentences realized he was in over his head and retreated— looking plaintively toward the hospital’s accountancy representative.

The young man in the ill-fitting suit gamely began throwing financial terms hither and yon—hoping to impress, dazzle and divert attention. Steve was having none of it. He repeated his question in a modulated even-tempered voice. Had the hospital set aside enough money to fund its pension obligations? It was a big number. It required a simple and straightforward answer. But it was soon apparent that Sparky wasn’t going to produce a coherent response either. Steve stood there patiently—quietly and steadfastly waiting for an answer that never came.

It was an eerily cold moment. I remember feeling some sympathy for the young accountant, the grizzled chair and the panicky finance chief. In a few questions—Steve had undressed the assorted folks sitting at the head table and exposed them as frauds.

In time they, and the chief executive, were all gone.

For me, it was the moment when it all began to unravel for that administration. There were more dramatic moments, angrier roomfuls of residents and consistently bad performances by the hospital corporation’s managers—yet it is that moment that I look back upon as the turning point.

With the help of some well compensated consultants they had bluffed their way through several years of incompetence. But with a few polite but persistent questions Steve had revealed them as imposters. They had no business deciding the fate of this or any community hospital and now the curtain had been pulled back so that everyone could see these con men for who they were.

Steve’s final days were spent in the hospital in Picton. I hope he found comfort there. He played a small but perhaps crucial role in salvaging it from the hands of these men.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca