The new president and CEO of the London Health Sciences Centre, Dr. Jackie Schleifer Taylor, speaks with CTV News London's Marek Sutherland about her new role and the current challenges.
On taking over during a challenging time:
I didn't have any hesitation about stepping in. I was completely confident of the team that was here and the work they had managed. We've managed together throughout the pandemic up until that time. So I was honoured to step in but I but I was very confident of the team to be to be sure.
In actuality, we've been already through quite the year almost a full year of a pandemic. The pandemic has changed everything within our walls and I do mean everything; patient flow patterns, leadership supports, the amount of new human resources we've had to recruit along the way. We actually account for the public person and how the activity for COVID and pandemic is separate and distinct from others.
On what comes next:
I'm very hopeful for 2022 for all of us. That just for all of us the pandemic one day will end. And I was listening to the radio yesterday and heard and infectious diseases experts talk about that being just the reality…We’re really already underway with thinking about how we're going to contribute optimally to the reset of the health system.
The support our community can and has grown to expect of us and how we can actually accelerate what we're doing to serve the populations we serve. And that that is in entirety our focus, managing the pandemic and readying ourselves to move forward as best we can.
On COVID-19 outbreaks in the hospital:
I think when the outbreak happened in November (of 2020), there wasn't an awareness that really now inside the hospital is the same as outside in the community in many ways of risks of exposure, and our staff and physicians and leaders are just doing their best. So what we try to do every day is remind ourselves of the basics, and that's infection prevention and control practices, and we're very strict on those and that's not me being strict about them. It's everybody who comes through our walls, really understanding that the stakes are high, and that our internal care spaces and teaching spaces, you know, we have to really try to be protective of them.
But one thing I'm confident of is that everyone comes to work every day to do the right thing and to do their best. And even with that great intention. We are going to have circumstances where some of that control we wish we had just isn't isn't isn't among us. You know, because we all have lives outside of the hospital. And even with the strictest of screening, self-screening and double vaccination following the rules. This is a variant we don't know much about…at all really, we're just learning as we go, all of us. I think we all share the same level of concern. So what I try to do is focus on what is within our control, to manage, and I think of that every day along these lines. I think we have it within ourselves to control how we face the unknown. And and my personal belief is that we have to do that with a lot of hopefulness and focus
I do think that LHSC and everyone in our community has demonstrated how committed they are to following procedures and doing their best and collaborating with others as we actually move forward through the pandemic together.
On working with others to handle the pandemic:
You know what, our beds are not our own. And by that I mean that I want to give a shout out to you know, the Ministry of Health and Ontario Health and their planning and the way in which that planning is executed under Ontario Health West -- we're a partner in the system. So whether that be an ICU bed needed by someone within London or southwestern Ontario, or as in the past several months out of province, we're looking at this as we're all in it together.
Southwestern Ontario hospitals in particular have a great relationship with one another…we're really a great-led, tightly knit group, who just make sure as best we can that patients are where they need to be for the right level of care at any given time and it has been working. But what the pandemic has shown so far is that even with the need to think about maybe sometimes moving patients around, we have been able to deliver care where it's needed and I feel as though 2022 is going to see an end to this pandemic, that'd be my hope, and I would think we're going to come out wiser and more together because of all of what we've been through together already. That's why I think we can handle anything.
On the pandemic going on longer than anyone thought:
Just when we thought things would be better or a little easier, they haven't proven to be that way. So we, you know, we thought wave one and then wave two, maybe a wave three and there it was more difficult than the one before and everyone just continues to show up. But it's not just the persons who are working and involved and volunteering at LHSC, which is 15,000 people, it's this community, just leaned in and wrapped their arms around us and we can do anything.
That's what I'm sure about now. Like I knew it but now I really know it. It's been tough times. I think 2021 has been good, bad and ugly. Not just about LHSC but about the sadness in our community that unfolded over different months and just a couple of weeks ago as a matter of fact, and what do you say when people just continually lean in and keep going. You feel really good about that.
So I'm very certain that the community that is LHSC -- 15,000 persons strong -- and the community that we happen to have the privilege of sitting in and serving London in southwestern Ontario. Yeah, I think we can do anything.
