YELLOWKNIFE - Deficits have been piling up at Stanton Territorial Hospital since 2003, the year the minister of health took control after the board managing it fired the CEO and dissolved itself.

Two Yellowknife MLAs recently raised concerns over the increasing accumulation of the authority's debt in the legislative assembly.

Robert Hawkins, MLA for Yellowknife Centre, suggested the absence of a board and the increase in the deficit were not a coincidence.

"It seems that once ministerial control got in the way by running a de facto dictatorship over the hospital. That's when these things started happening," said Hawkins.

Sandy Lee, minister of health and social services, said last Thursday there was no plan to reinstate the health board.

The authority has been operating without one since 2003.

In 2002, the authority operated a surplus of about $607,000. By 2004, it had a deficit of $243,000, which grew to $3.2 million in 2005. In the proposed 2008/'09 budget, the Stanton Territorial Health Authority (STHA) estimates an $11 million deficit by the end of this fiscal year.

The Financial Management Board Secretariat has also paid $26 million, or 13 Stanton employee payrolls, which the health authority has yet to pay back.

To get a grasp on the deficit, Lee recently appointed a public administrator, Al Woods, to review programs and get public input to provide the minister with recommendations on how to run the authority more efficiently.

Woods has been given three months to report his findings to the minister.

Lee said Woods will take the place of the board.

Woods' main objective is to develop a strategic plan, described as determining "what kinds of programs and services should we be offering now and in the future," he said, in a phone interview from his home in Calgary.

"It's basically planning for the next three-year period."

He hopes to have monthly public meetings.

"We have some real space issues there right now," Woods added, saying the plan would address that.

Woods said although he lives in Calgary, it would not affect his work as liaison to the public.

"A board isn't involved every day, all day long," said Woods.

"I try to focus on doing some work from here. But I go up as necessary.

"It's not a full-time job," said Woods.

Speaking to the authority's deficit coinciding with a lack of a health board, Woods did not see a correlation.

"I think it's completely unrelated," he said, explaining Stanton had operated a deficit for several years with a board in place before 2000.

The managing structure of the authority has changed.

The Stanton Health Board was comprised of members from the public. Its mandate was to manage, control and operate the authority's health care facilities and also enable Stanton's chief executive officer (CEO) to administer the facilities on a daily basis.

The board provided vision and direction to the CEO on far-reaching issues, while the CEO of Stanton was tasked with making day-to-day decisions at the hospital.

The CEO was hired by - and accountable to - the board.

Currently, the public administrator is accountable to the department of health and social services.

In November 2002, the health board voted to fire Stanton's CEO and then to dissolve as a board.

A thorough operational review at the time identified many serious shortcomings at Stanton.

"There continues to be a lack of common understanding and/or acceptance on the part of all the STHA board members and executive of their respective responsibilities," the report stated.

None of the former board members contacted were willing to speak publicly about the specific issues they encountered that drove them to dissolve the board.

After the board fell in 2003, Woods was named CEO of the authority in 2003.

Woods said in his time as CEO he received direction from the minister of health and social services.

One former board member had concerns with the process: "Who is to be the final arbitrator of what the public wants to be done?"