A total of 32 applications were submitted to the CKHA from people hoping to join their new board of directors.
Rob Devitt, the provincially appointed supervisor for the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance (CKHA), said the applicants come from areas all throughout Chatham-Kent, including a couple of people from outside of the community.
“Being on a hospital board is a huge responsibility,” Devitt said during a meeting with the media on Tuesday.
“We’re going back to local skills based governance. I think it is healthy to have people with different backgrounds. I’m hopeful it will go smoothly.”
Devitt said the search committee is set to meet for the first time on Wednesday and interviews with the candidates will take place next week.
CKHA officials announced earlier this month that Sharon Pfaff, Daniel Miskokomon and Greg Aarssen were named as the first three members of the new board. Read more about this, here.
A total of nine positions are still to be filled.
Dr. Pervez Faruqi, Chief of Staff, Dr. Alison Morand, president of medical staff, Lori Marshall, president and chief executive officer, Jerome Quenneville, vice president, chief financial officer and chief information officer and Lisa Northcott, vice president, chief nursing executive and chief professional practice, are all on the board in a ex-officio capacity because of their positions at the CKHA.
These ex-officio board members will not have voting capabilities.
Devitt said training for the new board members is slated for the end of February.
“We want them to start to gel together as a team,” he said.
Marshall said she’s looking forward to working with the new group.
“I do fundamentally believe that it’s important for us to have local governance,” Marshall said.
“It’s important for us to hear from a variety of different voices and different perspectives, different viewpoints. That diversity will add to the richness of the organization. So as we move ahead and needing to start to create a new strategic plan for the organization, set our vision for the future, it’s important for us to have that broader perspective.”
Devitt said the Erie-St. Clair LHIN announced in December that they would not be objecting to the plan to create a single board structure for the CKHA. Devitt said on Tuesday that the proposal is now going through a procedural process with the Ministry of Health, and should be approved officially soon.
– Photo credit: Aaron Hall
