Words and photography by Mike Douglas
Volunteers mark the gift of $5 million to Trillium Health Partners from Fred Ketchen with Michele Darling, Chair of the Foundation.
Mississauga’s Fred Ketchen became famous for his live reports on television and radio describing what was taking place at the Toronto Stock Exchange, and he became the Chair of the Exchange and a senior executive at Scotiabank at the same time. Now 77 and just retired, Ketchen has turned more attention to his philanthropy beginning with an extraordinarily generous gift to the Trillium Health Partners of $5 million!
On June 5, Ketchen’s gift was just part of a remarkably upbeat report on the successes enjoyed by what may well be the most outstanding hospital and support foundation in Ontario. Certainly, this is one of the few hospitals and foundations to enjoy an operating surplus. This is all the more remarkable when you consider the scope of their billion-dollar operation. There were 8,800 births in the Trillium Health Partners facilities last year and 260,000 emergency department visits.
Their first Community Report was held under a big white tent more often used for weddings, but it is fitting too for an anniversary—in this case of the merger of the Mississauga hospitals and their fundraising foundations. This amalgamation occurred over the last two years with few bruises. It was notable that successful integration was assumed and executed, and the subject felt historic already while their progress report to the community was being presented. Their success is one that Mississauga residents should take great pride in, especially considering that over 2,200 of them volunteer to help make this organization, with its 10,000 medical professional staff, work better.
Alan Torrie, outgoing Chair of the Board of Directors of Trillium Health Partners.
Last year, there was a 27.5 percent reduction in wait times, 127 community fundraising events and 58,000 donations. Not many were like Fred Ketchen’s gift, of course, but it is a significant indication of the both deep and widespread relationship that many of our residents have with this hospital and its work.
Incoming Chair of the hospital’s board of directors, Edward Sellars, is greeted by outgoing Chair, Alan Torrie.
This organization is called a partnership and that theme was integrated through the remarks of outgoing Board of Directors Chair Alan Torrie. Torrie identified their goal as providing easy access to high-quality healthcare, delivered in a cost-effective and sustainable way. Key to their professional partnership is the integration of expertise provided at bedside for the benefit of the patient. Recognizing that brain health is as important as heart health had a profound impact on the horizontal integration of health services for patients, Torrie cited, which led to an unprecedented emergence of collaborations which by their nature develop innovations.
The team members regularly begin by asking, “What is the best way to do this from the patient’s perspective?” How do they find simple and effective means of doing what they have to do to improve the experience for patients? Certainly, faster access is crucial. Wait times, while improving, are still too long. Think about this: in what is considered to be the outstanding hospital in the province, at any time there are likely 70 patients lying on portable beds in hallways waiting for a room so they can be properly treated.
Michelle DiEmanuele, President and CEO of Trillium Health Partners, greets special guest and benefactor Fred Ketchen.
Trillium Health Partners President and CEO Michelle DiEmanuele noted that “if the rest of the province operated as efficiently and effectively as we do, Ontario hospitals would return $750 million to the Province.” Her point, though, is that as well as they are doing, the task is increasing. As they treat and discharge more patients, reduce wait times and improve outcomes, they are still 300 beds short and the number of patients they serve will double over the next 10 years.
The community circumstances in which healthcare risks arise must be a concern for the modern hospital organization, and so gridlock presents healthcare implications. People’s lives are changing, and their schedules change along with them, so the modern hospital needs to become a 24-hour-a-day, 7-days-a-week operation—which sounds normal, but inside the hospital it’s a radical idea.
Michelle DiEmanuele, President and CEO of Trillium Health Partners, and Michele Darling, Chair of the Board of the Trillium Health Partners Foundation.
All of which hints at her main point: that there needs to be a new kind of healthcare and it’s about bringing everyone up and dealing with all of the inputs that shape the quality of their health.
Dr. Brian Goldman of White Coat, Black Art fame on CBC Radio made a pointed presentation about the consequences of overstressed and burned-out staff on the patient experience at the Kingston General Hospital. Their CEO decided to change the paradigm by bringing patients into the process as advisers on how best to provide care. And, of course, it worked—they have a much more attuned and healthy hospital there now.
Man of the moment, Fred Ketchen, is flanked by Trillium Health Partners Foundation members Miriam Myers and Nicole Lamont.
For Fred Ketchen, a former patient at the Mississauga hospital in his old home town, this is a family affair. He watched his father, a Rotary leader, turn sod at the announcement of the first hospital in Port Credit 50 years ago. Today he is helping the hospital that emerged and saved his life after two heart attacks.
“This is a wonderful organization and I want to continue the work of the people who started this hospital and all the other donors who have contributed to it before me,” he says. “I’m very grateful for the work they do and the opportunity I have to give something.
Two great philanthropists and hospital benefactors: Fred Ketchen and Harold Shipp.
“And I had too much money in the bank, so I had to do something with it,” he says with a smile.
We all have something to do with it. As the CEO of the Kingston General Hospital put it, “There is no benefit to simply offering congratulations and pats on the back—there should be a tension between patient and staff to do better.” The motto they developed, “Nothing about us without us,” guides them now.
Even with success there is room for innovation. Improvements are made all the more likely by the widest participation and input possible, from all those who care about healthcare in their community.