By Angela Brown

N.B. doctor appointed to new Health Authority superboard

Jun 19, 2017 | 2:00 PM

A local North Battleford family physician has been selected to be part of the new Saskatchewan Health Authority board of directors. Dr. Janet Tootoosis, who has a practice in North Battleford, was selected to be part of the new health superboard, which will replace the 12 existing health authorities throughout the province as part of the province’s restructuring plans.

Tootoosis, who is Cree from Poundmaker First Nation, is owner/operator of the North Battleford Medical Clinic Inc. She is also a recipient of the 2014 CFPC Awards of Excellence, from the Saskatchewan College of Family Physicians.

Among her many accomplishments, in 2007 she partnered with Prairie North Regional Health Authority to establish the Primary Health Care Centre in North Battleford. She has served as the regional Medical Staff resident (2008-2009), was a member of the board of directors for the Saskatchewan Medical Association (2015-2017). She is the site director for the University of Saskatchewan’s North Battleford Family Medicine Residency Training Program (2013 – present), and has been involved in Primary Health Care planning and delivery at regional and provincial levels since 2006.

The other directors appointed to the 10-member board are: R.W. (Dick) Carter, chairperson, Regina; Grant Kook, vice-chairperson, Saskatoon; Brenda Abrametz, Prince Albert; Marilyn Charlton, Weyburn; Judy Davis, Regina; Robert Pletch, Regina; Donald Rae, Yorkton; Rosalena Smith, Pinehouse Lake; and Tom Zurowski, Saskatoon. The head office for the new health authority will be based in Saskatoon. All board members are appointed for three-year terms.

New board chair Dick Carter said he recently met with the new directors.

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“They are all eager. In looking at their backgrounds, they are all very capable. It’s a good mix so I’m very excited to be working with this group,” Carter said.

He said the role of the board will be to make decisions about governance related to health care in the province, not to get involved in the specifics of operations.

The new board is expected to take over this Fall, likely in October or November. The head office of the new Saskatchewan Health Authority will be based in Saskatoon.

One of the first jobs for the board will be to review and recommend potential candidates for the new chief executive officer (CEO) position.

“The CEO needs to have experience; I think it’s very important the CEO also has a track-record of good HR relations with his team,” said Carter. “He has to build a new team. The team will come from existing folks for the most part I assume. So he needs to do that. And, he has got to be enthused about his new role, and make sure that the patient first is his priority,” Carter said.

The new board will be communicating with the current 12 health boards across the province during the transition phase over the next few months.

The board was selected based on members’ experience in governance, performance and financial management, and to represent patient experience and culture, based on the advisory panel’s recommendations.

Health Minister Jim Reiter said it was essential when selecting the board members that they came from a wide variety of backgrounds, including representation from the Indigenous population, based on the panel’s input.

“It’s very important. That was one of the panel’s recommendations, to have appropriate Aboriginal representation. There is a First Nation person and a Métis person on there. We have accepted the panel’s recommendations in their entirety and we are certainly going to achieve that,” he said in a recent press conference.

“I wanted to have five people with experience on a regional health board, so you have some corporate background, corporate knowledge there, and also five people who weren’t, so you have new sets of eyes and new ideas,” he added.  

“This distinguished group of five women and five men come from a diverse range of professional backgrounds, including governance, accounting, medicine, law, education, and business. Their experience in these industries will play an integral role in guiding the transition to a single provincial health authority, and achieving our goal of delivering high-quality health care for the entire province,” Reiter said.

angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsNOW