E. coli Brings Out the Urgency

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Last week brought the media debut of Dr. Mark Joffe as Alberta's Chief Medical Officer of Health. It didn't go so well.

Many people I work with when I do media training worry about saying the wrong thing and unfortunately for Dr. Joffe, that's what happened.

Urgency

As numbers from an E. coli outbreak affecting children in Calgary were going through the roof, the CMHO Dr. Mark Joffe stepped to the microphone early last week and did his first news conference since his controversial appointment last November. He replaced Dr. Deena Hinshaw, who was fired by Premier Danielle Smith, almost as soon as she was elected.

Things at the newser were going okay, although Joffe did look nervous and answering questions with his glasses on the end of his nose wasn’t the best look.

Then the totally expected question came from a reporter who asked why it took so long for Joffe and Health Minister Adriana LaGrange to answer questions from the media. After all, the first cases had been detected a week before.

Joffe answered the question and ended by saying “We didn’t feel that there was any urgency to do that until this point.”

Excuse me? No urgency to talk to the public even though over 200 children (at the time) had E coli poisoning? Interesting.

Health Minister LaGrange had to speak to the same question and quickly tried to clean up Joffe’s mess by saying what she thought Joffe had meant to say.

Within an hour, damage control from Alberta Health Services, with a statement “clarifying” Joffe’s remarks. That clarification still didn’t answer the question why it took so long to hold a news conference.

How Does This Happen?

I’m sure before the newser, Joffe and LaGrange met with communications people and other bureaucrats to prepare. These events don’t just happen without a lot of work behind the scenes to get everyone ready to go.

If I would have been involved (not that I’m suggesting I want to be) I would have made sure Joffe and LaGrange were fully prepared and practiced their answers to two questions.

1.  Why did it take so long for you to appear before the media to talk about this?

2.  With what the inspections showed at the kitchen where the food was prepared, why didn’t you take action earlier, especially since children were being fed?

When I do media training, I always show people the importance of anticipating the questions they’re going to get. I also spend extra time dealing with the questions that most people don’t want to answer. It’s easy to answer the softball questions, so spend the time wisely to work on the difficult questions – the ones you hope you don’t get. If reporters don’t ask them, then no harm no foul. At least you were prepared for them.

I’ve had people I’ve prepped for newsers tell me “Nobody’s going to ask me that”, to which I reply “What if they do? Wouldn’t you rather stumble around in front of me trying to answer the question than doing it in front of reporters?”

We then proceed to work on questions like the one that tripped Dr. Joffe up.

Too Soon?

Then on Friday, Dr. Joffe started another news conference and read from a prepared statement explaining his urgency remark, saying that wasn’t his intention. He seemed sincere and the prepared statement, likely written by communication staff, hit all the right notes.

This was followed by Premier Smith being overcome by emotion and taking a long time to pull herself together when she spoke to reporters.

After she composed herself, Premier Smith was asked two or three times why she hadn’t stepped forward to speak publicly until then. Remember the first question I had on my list for the initial news conference?

One of her comments almost seemed to be missed by reporters. It appears Smith has learned her lesson about politicians getting too involved in public health matters. She mentioned the recent court decision that ruled it’s up to the Chief Medical Officer of Health to make the call. Former Premier Kenney did get far too involved in calling the shots on COVID and that led to the court decision.

Lesson apparently learned.

The question then becomes when should the Premier get involved publicly in an issue like this? Smith said the public doesn’t want to see politicians grandstanding during a time of crisis. They want to hear from health officials making the decisions.

It’s a classic case of you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. It’s pretty clear now the Premier needs to be seen earlier in a crisis like this. What she should say is another story.

Premier Smith, LaGrange and Dr. Joffe all should have spoken in public earlier than they did, especially Smith. The classic "Get out in front of the story" was clearly missed here.

If public health decisions are truly going to be left  to the medical professionals, Dr. Joffe should get prepared for more difficult questions.

The unfortunate aspect is, Dr. Joffe may be very good at his job as CMOH, but the public doesn't see that. It just sees him in front of the media. That's why saying the right thing is so important.