The votes are in.
The Sydenham District Hospital Corporation has a brand new board of directors, after the Annual General Meeting was held at the UAW Hall in Wallaceburg.
The members include: Jeff Wesley, Sheldon Parsons, Herb John, Kris Lee, George Lung, Gary Martin and William Steep.
Following the vote, Wesley was named chair of the board, while Parsons was named vice chair.
Both Wesley and Parsons will now sit on the Tri-Board of the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance.
“This is a very positive move for our community, SDH and local health care,” Wesley said. “It starts a new positive era for working together between the SDH Board, our communities and CKHA.”
Colin Patey, President and CEO of the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, told the Sydenham Current following the vote that the outcome is very important.
“This is very important for the functioning of the Tri-Board,” Patey said. “The Tri-Board cannot operate unless there is a quorum of each of the three constituent boards. That has been the problem we’ve had since April. Now that this has been newly constituted legally, we are able to have a meeting and address the agenda items and to reconvene the annual meeting.”
Patey added: “The chair and the vice chair will become a part of the executive committee of the Tri-Board and they would meet to discuss matters of meetings, meeting times, who will be placed on those committees and just normal regular business, most of which would gear up with any major impact beginning in September.”
Patey said the number of people who showed up to vote tonight was not close to the total of members.
“The corporation membership grew this year from just over 60 to 300, but that is not what we had out tonight. What we had was around what we normally expect and indicated they would come out, in the order of about 60. The process was handled very collegially and very legally. We had our legal council to the Tri-Board here in attendance and he is more than satisfied.”
The official number of votes are not known at this time.
Included on the ballot tonight and not successful, was Heather Dunlop.
Charlie Kridiotis was also included on the ballot, but had withdrawn his name from consideration.
