Health Minister Deb Matthews is under fire once again for not providing necessary oversight of her big-spending ministry.

The latest incident came to light Thursday when it was revealed that the Ontario Drug Benefit (ODB) Program responsible for overseeing the spending about $4.4 billion a year has not produced an annual report in five years, according to critics.

Matthews appeared to be taken off guard when Tory MPP Frank Klees (Newmarket—Aurora) raised the issue in the legislature, but she promised later that she would get to the bottom of it.

“My understanding is that they are going to table that report very shortly for the all the years that are missing. I am going to go back and find out what happened because it is not OK,” said Matthews, who acknowledged she was unaware of the delinquent reports.

“I am going to get to the bottom of it,” said Matthews, whose aide noted later that the agency’s information is also covered off in Public Accounts.

After the matter was raised in the legislature a compilation of the annual documents from 2008 through 2012 were suddenly tabled with the legislative clerk.

The Ontario Drug Benefit Program is responsible for supplying prescription drugs for Ontario seniors and for those people on social assistance and well as overseeing the Trillium Drug Plan for people who have high drug costs.

“It is a very big part of our health care system, about 10 per cent of our budget,” Matthews, MPP for London North Centre, told reporters.

Klees told the Star the fact Matthews was not even aware of the reports not being filed shows a “pattern of incompetence” going back to the billion-dollar eHealth debacle and ORNGE air ambulance scandal, where the Star revealed questionable business practices that resulted in an ongoing OPP investigation.

Klees said the last Ontario Drug Benefit Program annual report was posted in 2007. “The law requires that it get published within 30 days of the minister receiving it,” he said.

“This is a minister who simply does not have control of her ministry,” he said, adding the Matthews is also deputy premier and co-chair of the Liberal re-election campaign. “This woman has far too much on her plate. When does she have time to look after her ministry? Clearly she doesn’t.”

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath told reporters the lack of reports from an important agency like this is a symptom of a “disturbing pattern of lack of oversight in the ministry of health.”

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The most recent crisis involving the health ministry is the fact that more than 1,000 patients in Ontario, including those undergoing chemotherapy treatments in the past year, received diluted doses of two drugs. The mishap is being probed by the federal and provincial government as well as an independent third person

“It seems like the government spends more time covering up its mistakes than it does proactively doing the job of oversight on behalf of the people of this province,” Horwath said.

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