When Is a Malignant Tumor Benign?

PrivatizationForTheNation
BCFerriesVille

Maybe, just maybe, when a quack is faking the diagnosis?

Which appears to have been the call of the Vancouver Sun's editorial board today, at least as it pertains to the term that BC Ferries CEO David Hahn used to describe a letter he received from the federal Transportation Safety Board:

In an interview last week with Vancouver Sun columnist Vaughn Palmer before the contents of the report were made public, BC Ferries president David Hahn characterized them as "benign."

They were not. The situation described by the safety board was potentially serious and should have been given more weight than it was.

Again, that opinion did not appear out of the fever swamps of Left Blogistan, but rather it came straight from the commie-pinko(not), worker-whacko(not) Vancouver Sun.

Now, over the past couple of days I have read and heard Mr. Hahn say many times that the letter means little because it just reflects the grousing of a few BC Ferry workers after the fact. Additionally, I also heard him say yesterday that it doesn't matter anyway because the upgrades were trivial and were comparable to getting a new keyboard on a your home computer.

Hmmmmm.....

Perhaps we should go to the original document and see if Mr. Hahn is making an honest diagnosis or if he is playing the part of a quack bent on getting out his own spin.

We will excerpt it below, but the entire letter from the Safety Board can be found here (warning pdf file):

"......Early in March the Queen of the North had just completed a refit, which included the installation of a new sterring-mode selector switch at the main steering station. Although crew members who were involved with the refit had passed on information about the modifications to other crew members, not all crew members appear to have been adequately briefed.

Information gathered so far has revealed that some bridge team members were not familiar with the use of all of the bridge equipment and controls. For example, members of the bridge team had different understandings of how the recently installed steering-mode selector switch worked and what function each setting of the switch performed (that is, to select between the autopilot, jog, and the forward and main steering wheels)."

Interesting.

So, the Transportion Safety Board is telling Mr. Hahn (the letter was addressed specifically to him on May 11th, 2006, almost one month ago) that there were members of the crew that may not have been adequately trained to operate a piece of equipment that controls the autopilot and the steering. Sounds like more than a keyboard replacement on the home PC to me.

So, what did the Safety Board specifically recommend to Mr. Hahn?

Again, here is what the letter itself actually said, sans Mr. Hahn's or anyone else's attempts at spin:

".....It is necessary for the officers and members of the crew to be sufficiently familiar with on board equipment, controls and their functions, in order to safely accomplish the taks required of them. Although it is common for crew members to be familiarized using on-the-job training, concerning the operation of safety critical equipment, it is essential that crew members be thoroughly perpared in advance so that they are able to operate the vessel safely from the outset.

Given this importance to the safety of the vessel, passengers and crew, BCFS (BC Ferries Services) may wish to take measures to ensure that, following modifications made to a vessel, crew members are fully familiarized with and trained to operate new or modified equipment such that they are prepared to be able to safely carry out their duties."

Now those words, written by Marcel Ayeko the acting director of Marine Investigations for the Safety Board, make it quite clear that the Board has collected evidence that has led it to state, in writing, that there may have been an absence of systematic training that Mr. Hahn's company may want to correct.

All of which leads us to wonder why, particularly if he really is most concerned with the safety of the fleet, has Mr Hahn not provided any evidence to allay the Safety Board's concerns by offering explicit evidence of systematic training on the new equipment, rather than just running down crew members?

And just make it absolutely clear, the Safety Board itself has not backed down as reported in today's Globe and Mail by Rod Mickleburgh:

TSB (Transportation Safety Board) spokesman John Cottreau stressed the board is a long way from completing its report on the ferry sinking.

"[But] our investigators turned up a safety deficiency . . . and we are telling B.C. Ferries about what we uncovered," he said.

"We don't wait for the final report if something needs to be done. We haven't drawn any conclusions, but we've seen this thing, and it's starting to quack like a duck."

Mr. Cottreau stressed the lack of training was not "a root cause" of the tragedy. "It could be a contributing factor, but there's never just one factor in an accident."

There's that term 'quack' again. Of course, Mr. Cottreau's final statement is very important and we should not forget this as the investigation moves forward and the allegations continue to fly.

But clearly the Safety Board has confirmed that their letter was not 'benign' because they have serious concerns about the training on equipment whose improper use is dangerous and thus they are telling BC Ferries that they 'may wish to take measures' to correct this.

This, too, is very important because the onus is on the operator to ensure that the crew is trained and through all of this Mr. Hahn has not told us what, if any, measures, he has taken to correct this.

And furthermore, when Mr. Hahn spouts off about how he can't get to the bottom of the Queen of the North's '14 Minute Blackhole' because the crew members involved are not willing to submit to an internal BC Ferries investigation when they have, apparently, submitted freely to the RCMP and the Safety Board investigations, we can now understand why they might have chosen not to do so.

After all, it appears that, based on his statements and actions so far, Mr. Hahn has demonstrated a willingness to use any information gathered to generate spin favorable to his position rather than coming up with an honest diagnosis of the problem.

And no one, apparently not even the editorial board of the Vancouver Sun, is willing to take a chance on the malpractice that could result if a potentially malignant condition were to be wilfully misdiagnosed as 'benign'.

Which is a good thing.