Stepping into the top job at Barrie's Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH), Gail Hunt expects to see many of the same challenges she has had to deal with as the chief executive officer at Georgian Bay General Hospital in Midland.
It was announced Wednesday that Hunt will succeed Janice Skot, who is retiring after more than 17 years at the helm, and take up the reins on July 4.
Hunt, who hails from Sudbury, has spent the past five years at the Midland hospital and 16 years before that as the CEO of Chapleau Health Services in northern Ontario.
Top of mind is staffing — a shortage that the pandemic helped to expose in the health-care system nationwide.
“The biggest challenge in health care right now experienced by all of us is health human resources. It’s a double-edged sword for RVH,” Hunt told BarrieToday, referring to expansion plans for the local facility on Georgian Drive and the creation of an Innisfil campus that, which when complete in 20 years, will be the same size as the current campus and is expected to see a doubling of the total workforce.
One of the keys, she said, will be the strategic plan that lays out not just how to maintain current levels, but build upon them and work toward future needs to ensure they’re available in the right disciplines at the time they’re needed.
For Hunt, that means working closely with community partners.
She points to the new stand-alone, four-year bachelor of science in nursing (BScN) degree program to be offered at Georgian College’s Barrie and Owen Sound campuses starting in September. The hope is to keep those people in the region upon graduation.
“A feeder system is really taking on students” in the different disciplines, Hunt said, “making sure you’re supporting those programs and initiatives and retention, making sure your teams are really happy.”
RVH was one of the hospitals to participate in the Ministry of Health’s enhanced extern program, which sees students in nursing, respiratory therapy, medicine or paramedic programs employed at the local hospital with an eye to future permanent employment there.
Hunt believes there is potential to build upon the extern and internationally trained nursing programs and perhaps other provincially funded programs to build up workforce levels.
RVH, she added, does do some teaching and takes on students for clinical placements, as do all hospitals, and there are long-term plans to develop it into a teaching hospital.
Meanwhile, the local hospital has to continue managing through the other challenges of the pandemic.
On Tuesday, Skot, RVH’s current president, issued a message to the community about concerns around the pandemic’s sixth wave, which have seen hospitalizations creep up in the area as cases spike.
At the same time, the Barrie hospital is experiencing a large number of staff absences due to illness. Up to 150 employees and physicians have been off work this week due to COVID-19 infection or exposure.
Surgical procedures, which last week had climbed to 90 per cent of pre-pandemic volumes, is once again subject to cutting with the reduction of the number of open operating rooms at RVH.
Hunt said the Midland hospital has had similar challenges, although it has a much lower volume with more of a focus on day surgeries as opposed to those requiring overnight stays.
“Everybody faces that difficulty when you have these waves,” said Hunt, former chair of the Simcoe County Hospital Alliance. “Everybody’s struggling, it just makes it harder to catch up. As a region, we try to plan together as to how we can catch up.”
In coming to Barrie, Hunt will also oversee RVH’s expansion, an area in which she has some experience. The Midland hospital has submitted its Stage 1 master plan for a new hospital as well as new acute mental health beds, which is in Stage 2. The goal is to double the size of the Midland hospital in the next 15 years.
Increased migration to the entire Simcoe County area during the pandemic is expected to see growth projections realized sooner than earlier predicted, she added. And the hope is to bring more services locally so that the growing population here doesn’t have to travel elsewhere for medical attention.
“RVH has huge, ambitious plans for the future,” Hunt said, referring to the creation of a south campus in Innisfil and the expansion of the existing facility along Georgian Drive, as well as additional services and programming. “For me, it’s really carrying through and leading the team through that expansion.
“I’m really excited about continuing on that strategic plan.”
