Fredericton — The provincial government is letting the air out of the rumours surrounding the grounds for the dismissal of Dr. Eilish Cleary, New Brunswick’s former chief medical officer of health. After several weeks of mystery, outrage and accusations, the Minister of Health is revealing that her dismissal had much more to do with noxious gas emissions than glyphosate.
“It’s no secret that Dr. Cleary had very little regard for either the current or the last government, or politicians in general in fact,” said Boudreau. “That alone is not a big deal; hey, we’d have to exile 75 percent of the province if we needed to get rid of people who thought politicians were full of rancid hot air.”
He continued, “The problem wasn’t her behaviour towards government, but towards everyone in general. The dismissal was one of those normal everyday HR types of things that every workplace has to deal with time to time. For example, when there is continuous discourteous behaviour from a person that negatively impacts the entire workplace, over time people wind up breaking.”
Dr. Eilish Cleary was appointed as the Chief Medical Officer of Health for the Province of New Brunswick in 2008. Originally from Ireland, she came to New Brunswick from Manitoba where she worked as a Regional Medical Officer for several years before becoming the Medical Officer for Emergency Preparedness and Response for Manitoba. Before working in the public health field, Dr. Cleary was trained as a primary care physician.
Despite her impressive credentials, the Minister of Health claims that the leading factor for her dismissal was Cleary’s rampant anti-social behaviour, which impacted both her relationships with colleagues and the office’s working environment. “This is kind of awkward… but for example,” said Boudreau, “Eilish knew that she was severely lactose-intolerant but started every workday with a breakfast including a quart of buttermilk and a Costco-sized block of cheddar cheese. Within a couple of hours, her intestines were ‘speaking Gaelic’ so to speak. It was really unpleasant for everyone.”
Boudreau revealed other behaviours that created a toxic working environment for Dr. Cleary’s co-workers, all which ended up being contributing factors in her dismissal:
- Cleary chained-smoked king-size menthol cigarettes in her office with the door closed and the windows open year-round. If anyone complained to her, she’d say, “Well, you better go whine to the chief medical officer then,” and without breaking eye contact she would stand one inch away and exhale smoke in their faces;
- She would often remove her lab coat and walk around the office flexing, asking who wanted “free tickets to the gun show”;
- At least once per week, there were entire afternoons where she would only speak in U2 lyrics;
- When she would take the last cup of coffee, she not only didn’t make a new pot but she did a “mic drop” with the empty coffee pot saying, “Boom! That just happened.”
- Cleary refused to learn anyone’s name. She addressed everyone as “Chief,” and then she would interrupt them saying, “No wait, that’s me, I’m the chief!” and laugh uproariously. Every. Single. Time.
Cleary is now trying to reach a legal settlement with the province. In the meantime, Boudreau has had frequent “informal communication” with her. “Honestly, I keep getting Snapchats of various obscene gestures from her and random texts that say ‘bollix’ and ‘maggot,’ so I guess she’s not too happy with me,” he said. “However, the Public Health staff feel like they finally have a breath of fresh air, so I guess we can settle for that.”