A message from the Board Chair and the Executive Director

Working together, for each other

Dear friends,

Like many of you, our reflections of 2022 revolve around the fact that COVID-19 is rapidly evolving, and getting through this requires that we all work together and stand by each other. The ongoing experience of the pandemic is tough, and we continue to feel a lack of control. But, despite the anxiety, lack of control, and uncertainty, there was so much observable collective resilience and support throughout the Centre.

We also feel pride. We feel pride in how so many people – from our frontline healthcare staff to all of us who have sacrificed our joys to protect others –have come together and formed an unwritten commitment to watch out for each other, taken personal actions to keep others safe, and made deep sacrifices for the greater good.

When we look around at our staff, we see exhaustion, stress, and grief. But, we also see tenacity and resolve. We see a commitment to ensuring the health and well-being of everyone. We see strength. When we look at so many of our friends, neighbours and community around us, we also see these same things.

Working together and for each other affords us with the promise of hope, tolerance and collaboration in moving forward.

We want to encourage hope, but not a false sense of reality. We want us to look ahead at a brighter time, but we want to urge caution around assumptions that COVID-19 isn’t still serious, and won’t continue to take lives. Omicron, for example, may be mild for many, but for just as many it has also been, and still is, deadly. For example, vulnerable populations, people facing inequities such as homelessness or systemic racism, healthcare and other frontline workers who put their lives on the line every day remain at risk.

We want to assure you we are continuing to do everything we can to support our critical COVID-19 response work and to ensure that evidence-based information is reaching our patients and community. As we start to look ahead, we’re seeing our role evolving into recovery and addressing the societal consequences of the pandemic-related measures of the last two years. Our work won’t stop, and our vision of creating a healthy community won’t end. And, as we transition to fewer restrictions, we will maintain our level of diligence and responsibility to you. Together we can continue to keep each other safe. This is how we will live with COVID-19 and find our better future. If this pandemic has taught us anything, is that we are stronger together and we can thrive, together.

When we get through the worst of what COVID-19 brings, we will all remember what it felt like to support each other, to take individual actions and make individual choices to protect the collective good, and we will keep it going. We will apply this to our broader concept of health, how we resource our health and our healthcare systems, and how we live in and respect the world and people around us.

Because small things we can all do can make a huge impact. It’s that simple.

In gratitude,

Leila Bocksch, Board Chair

David Gibson, Executive Director

SHCHC honours the territory upon which our staff and partners live, work, and play. We acknowledge that this is the traditional unceded, unsurrendered Territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation, who lived on this land since time immemorial. We are grateful to have the opportunity to live and work on this territory.

Terra, a Registered Nurse in Health Services, sent an instant message to the team one day, and she lifted everyone’s energy when she wrote: “An elderly patient’s son just told me how much he appreciates the care that his mother and his family get from us. He told me that we are all very special to them.

Today is a good day. We must remember what people say on days like this so we can pull through the days that are not like this.”

This instant message helps to show the determination the Health Services team has to deliver exceptional quality health care to as many people as our resources allow.