Doing business with the government is tough at the best of times. Getting decisions takes forever, getting paid takes longer and the clients are prone to changing their minds midstream.
So Thursday’s in-depth story about problems with the bidding process for a huge health contract with the province is likely no surprise to anyone who has ever bid on government tenders.
DIDN'T CATCH THE STORY? YOU WONT WANT TO MISS THIS:
However, that doesn’t mean it’s right to say one thing to a group of bidders and then do something else.
That’s what happened during the selection process for a supplier for a program called One Person One Record.
The initiative is hugely worthwhile, promising a single health record that will eventually be available to health professionals anywhere in the province.
That means, for example, that if you have a medical emergency, the people treating you could have an accurate record of your medications or recent doctors’ visits.
This is important because people visiting ERs are often dazed or unconscious and can’t communicate this information. This could be a crucial, potentially life-saving service.
Developing such systems is a big industry and many suppliers are fighting for the business, which most jurisdictions in the technologically advanced West are either considering or in the process of implementing. Six companies submitted bids to supply Nova Scotia with this service.
One bidder, Evident, was told early on that the Nova Scotia health authority would not be meeting with any of them. But that doesn’t seem to be what happened.
As reported by The Chronicle Herald’s Paul Schneidereit, representatives from two of the six bidding groups allegedly did meet with health authority officials, sharing restaurant meals. There’s no question they presented at NSHA-sponsored seminars.
The companies leading those two bidding groups ended up on the shortlist.
Another unsuccessful bidder, Epic, complained that their proposal was delivered to the right building on time, but ended up at the wrong office. Repeated phone calls from the wrong office to the procurement office were not answered. When Epic’s proposal finally got to procurement, it was disqualified for missing the deadline.
Complaints of bias and conflict of interest filed by Evident were reviewed internally and dismissed. Requests by them and by The Chronicle Herald for an explanation of why some bidders were denied meetings while other bidders appeared to have access, were met by bland assurances of fairness.
Is this the way the provincial government conducts business?
More to the point, does Premier Stephen McNeil expect the public to accept that the government knows best, that there’s nothing to see here and that everything was fair and above board, without any real explanation?
At stake is a contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars of public money. We all stand to benefit from its great promise.
That makes it even more important for the government to be more transparent about how it spends our money.
