BURST
The forcer CEO of Fraser Health, Dr. Victoria Lee, will be paid more than $600,000 in severance after she was fired as head of the health authority in February.
The details of Lee’s payout were released without fanfare last Thursday as part of an executive compensation disclosure for the 2024-25 fiscal year on Fraser Health’s website . The figure was first reported on Monday by The Tyee .
The severance package of $609,335 is based on Lee’s annual salary of about $377,000, plus vacation, pension and retroactive pay, and other benefits, including a one-time job search allowance up to $16,000.
It is being paid out in instalments that started on Feb. 18, Lee’s last day of employment, and will continue until Aug. 18, 2026.
Trevor Halford, the Surrey-White Rock MLA and Conservative health critic, slammed the NDP government over the “golden parachute” for Lee as health authorities struggle with overcrowding and lengthy wait lists.
Halford tried to get Health Minister Josie Osborne to disclose Lee’s severance payout in the B.C. legislature in April, asking point-blank whether it was more or less than $1 million.
Despite coming in well below that figure, Halford quoted The Tyee as saying it is 15 times higher than the severance afforded to a nurse in similar circumstances.
“This government is rewarding failure at the top while cutting jobs lower down,” said Halford. He called out the NDP for giving “golden parachutes for executives, pink slips for workers, and zero accountability for the mess they’ve made of our health care system.”
News of the big executive payout comes after it was reported late last week that the Provincial Health Services Authority is cutting 57 management jobs and eliminating 61 vacant positions as part of an ongoing review of corporate spending.
Lee was forced out after emergency room doctors at Surrey Memorial Hospital declared a crisis of overcrowding and health worker burnout in a letter that leaked last year.
Just a week ago, Fraser Health said the emergency room at Delta Hospital was closed overnight because of a doctor shortage, one of many in recent months in the health region that serves two million people from Burnaby to Boston Bar.
“British Columbians deserve to know how many more cushy executive payouts are coming, and how deep these cuts to the health system will go,” said Halford in a statement on Monday.
The interim president and CEO for Fraser Health, hired immediately after Lee’s departure in February, is Lynn Roberta Stevenson. She received just under $50,000 in salary and benefits through the end of the 2024-25 fiscal year on March 31.