'I know what's right for the health service': Minister defends position after reshuffle
Deputy Karen Wilson spoke to ITV Channel following Constable Jehan's criticism of her department.
Jersey's Health Minister has defended her position and department after a fellow minister resigned over an "indefensible misuse of taxpayers' money" and other "severe concerns".
Constable Andy Jehan quit his government role on Saturday 25 November, saying there is a "lack of any coherent health strategy".
Following the resignation of Andy Jehan over an "indefensible misuse of taxpayers' money" after £320,000 was spent on the Health Advisory Board.
Constable Jehan claimed that the Health Minister missed an opportunity to appoint an "excellent" candidate put forward by the Jersey Appointments Commission for the permanent Chairman position, but instead chose to extend Hugo Mascie Taylor's contract, costing £250,000 per year.
Responding to the criticism, Deputy Karen Wilson explained, "I'm not going to get into whether that figure is accurate or not, what I know is that we are still in the process of recruiting a substantive chair.
"I stand by my decision and I know what is right for the health service".
One of Deputy Wilson's predecessors as Health Minister, former Senator Ben Shenton, questioned her position, telling ITV News he doesn't think she should have been appointed in the first place.
But Deputy Wilson stood by her work, saying: "I have managed to reduce the waiting times for an MRI from a year down to six weeks, we've recruited over 100 clinicians into the service which is an amazing achievement and money well spent.
"[We've delivered] a financial recovery programme to assure islanders that we are making the best use of that money and on track to delivering the first three million of the efficiency on that programme by the end of the year."
The Minister did list some of the problems the health sector is facing, saying: "We are dealing with historic underfunding, we are dealing with historic patterns of inability to recruit staff and we are also dealing with some poor practice which was highlighted and is open to the public in the report."
Speaking to ITV News, Deputy Wilson went on to defend the - in Constable Jehan's words, "indefensible" - amount of money spent on the Health Advisory Board.
She said: "The reason why it's important that we spend money is we've got to turn this around.
"We've got some really talented people in the organization through the board processes driving that improvement.
"I'm not going to get into whether that figure is accurate or not, what I know is that we are still in the process of recruiting a substantive chair."
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