When we think of our past — recent and distant — we remember events and places but, for the most part, we remember people who have had an impact on our lives, our community and our times.

So it is with Trillium Health Centre.

As we celebrate our 10th Anniversary and acknowledge the 50th anniversary of the opening of South Peel – later The Mississauga –- Hospital and the 52nd anniversary of the opening of the Queensway General Hospital –- we remember a few of those people whose personal stories bring a special focus to the history of our hospitals.

Taken together, their story is the story of Trillium.

There are, without doubt, scores of other stories worth telling and over the next year we’ll bring you more Faces of Trillium.

As you enjoy their stories, you’re invited to tell us a story of your own about The Mississauga Hospital, Queensway General Hospital or Trillium Health Centre, or tell us a story of your own or suggest the name of someone else whose story should be told.

Matthew Casaca | Barbara Doumouras | Jacques Duguay | Virginia Gardhouse
Laurie Gehrling | Betty Gordon | Merritt Henderson | Dr. Norman Hill
Fred Ketchen | Ann Mackay | John Magill | Samantha Moraes
Dr. Krystyna Ostrowska | Beverley Patterson | Dr. Reg Perkin | Harold Shipp | Vicky Sharma | Dr. Roman Sluzar & Dr. Vladimir Sluzar | Kim Stephens Woods | Eric Vandewall | Ruby West

When South Peel Hospital opened in May, 1958, Dr. Jim Brayley says proudly that it was fully paid for. It had no debt.

“But they had no money either. I can remember when I started working here, I myself had to go downtown to buy two instruments because I couldn’t do operations without two Haney clamps. I don’t know whether that would happen these days.” (more…)

Fred Ketchen calls himself ‘the stent man’. To Trillium, he’s the consistent man –- a true blue, second-generation loyal supporter.

In 1956, Fred Ketchen was a 22-year-old witness to the sod turning — by 44 school children –- for South Peel Hospital, an institution his father helped build with other members of the Credit Valley Lions Club and the Port Credit Rotary Club. W. M. Ketchen chaired the joint committee and later served on the hospital Board; Fred Ketchen’s mother served for two years as the president of the hospital auxiliary. (more…)

Dr. Norman Hill says the warm and caring qualities of both the Queensway General Hospital, where he was Chief of Staff and The Mississauga Hospital, set the tone for the development of the new Trillium Health Centre.

“We more than doubled in size, expanded our programs and experienced a change in philosophy that led us to work for betterment of patient care through the leadership of Ken White  and the concept of 1001 leaders” Our size allows us to provide many more subspecialty services and better quality of care.

Through its first decade, Trillium has continued to evolve. For example, Dr. Hill says medicine is no longer sole domain of the physician. “We work in inter-professional teams which include other health care experts whose knowledge and training we respect.” (more…)

Harold Shipp likes to joke that 11 Shipps have set sail from Trillium Health Centre and its predecessors.

In 1958, Harold and June Shipp’s third child, Gordon, was born at the Queensway General Hospital, just two years after it opened. Since that time, 10 grandchildren have been born at one of the hospitals.

In fact, he says, a Shipp has been an active part of the hospital since 1966 when his wife, June C. Shipp, became an active Queensway volunteer, a role she continued for 35 years until her sudden death in 2000. (more…)

She can enumerate a long list of changes, but, for Betty Gordon, two things have remained exactly the same since the day in 1967 when she started work in the Cash Office at South Peel Hospital.

“It’s always been a wonderful place to work with a real sense of community and through all the changes, people have remained genuinely devoted to the care of the patient.”

In a few months, Betty Gordon will retire as the Finance Department’s Manager of General Accounting.

“I’ve loved every year of working here.  Change has been ongoing – it never stops — but it’s always been rewarding.” (more…)

“My first week, I didn’t think it was such a big deal but, after a while, I realized how much it meant to people just to have someone stop and talk for a minute.”

Barbara Doumouras became a Trillium volunteer as a Grade 10 student.

Five years later, she’s still distributing water and friendly visits every Saturday afternoon. She’s also starting her third year at the University of Toronto with a double major in biology and pharmacology. She plans to study medicine.

“When I became a volunteer, I began to realize how important health is to people.  When you’re not healthy, you don’t have anything.  Volunteering helped me decide to become a doctor.” (more…)

For three years -  his first three not only at The Mississauga Hospital but in nursing – Jacques Duguay was part of a select pool of nurses assigned on an as-needed basis to nursing units.

“When we weren’t needed anywhere else, our base was Emergency,” he says. The assignment gave him a broad base of experience that has stood him in good stead ever since.

When the unit was disbanded in 1998, he worked in Neural Rehab and then covered a maternity leave in Emergency where he stayed, becoming clinical leader in 2002. In 2007, he was appointed Patient Care Co-ordinator, a new role that, he believes, echoes the work of the nursing supervisor at the time he joined the staff in 1995. (more…)

When her grandfather was hospitalized at Trillium, Samantha Moraes noticed that many of the other elderly patients didn’t have visitors.

“I decided that if I could volunteer as a visitor, it would make a difference in at least a few lives.”

She visits patients at the McCall Centre or in rehab every Saturday, and spends time with them, talking to them about things that interest them like their family or telling them about her own life as a way of beginning a conversation.

“Being in a hospital can be a harrowing experience without someone to talk to,” she says. (more…)

It was the year the Beatles gave up touring.  Lester B. Pearson was the Prime Minister of Canada and the CBC began broadcasting in colour.  The Viet Nam war dominated the news.

It was 1966 and it was also the year Beverley Patterson began working at Queensway General Hospital.

Officially retired in 2007, she has remained a casual employee, making her the longest serving Trillium employee beginning a career at Queensway.

“My first job was in housekeeping, cleaning the nursery in the maternity wing.”  In 1972, she became a darkroom technician, working in the X-Ray department.   Her last 3 years as a full-time employee were spent in the film library, making CDs, scanning requisitions and filing. (more…)

Growth may not always be good news.

When Dr. Krystyna Ostrowska joined the staff of The Mississauga Hospital in 1994 as the head of medical microbiology laboratory and infectious diseases consultant, she and one infection control practitioner dealt with the occasional case of tuberculosis or outbreak of Norwalk community diarrhea.

Since then her staff has grown to six full time Infection Prevention and Control practitioners, the result of not just amalgamation with Queensway General Hospital but, rather, of need for management of major infectious disease outbreaks from SARS to C. Difficile to superbugs.

“The  involvement of the infection prevention and control (IPAC) team in patient care has grown exponentially. Nowadays, there is the issue of a pandemic influenza hovering over us while, at the same time, we’re focused on control of C. Diff, the new kid on the block. The outbreaks and critical infection control issues overlap and add more layers to complexity of patient care. (more…)

Kim Stephens-Woods says she feels she grew up at Trillium.

“My Mom worked as a nurse when The Mississauga Hospital was still South Peel.  It was nice to work in the same organization that my mother worked in.”

Kim Stephens-Woods joined the hospital in 1987 as an emergency room nurse.  Twenty-one years later she is leaving Trillium, resigning as Director of the Surgical Health System to take up the post of Perioperative Director at St. Joseph’s Healthcare in Hamilton.

“From amalgamation to construction, there have been changes every day.  Changes in how we care for people, changes in technology, changes through the LHIN. (more…)

Vicky Sharma is one of Trillium’s newest faces but she’s already one of its most widely-known.

The 23-year-old nurse was names the national 2008 Graduate of the Year by Health Careers magazine.  Nominated by Orthopaedics Clinical Educator Marcella Honour, Vicky Sharma was applauded for her “unwavering commitment to patient-centred care”.  She provides interpretation for Punjabi-speaking patients, sings happy birthday and gives back rubs during down-time on the unit. (more…)

Trillium is not only in the business of treating health, it’s in the business of modeling good health.

For Senior Vice President, Eric Vandewall, that’s more than a principle  -  it’s a mission and a passion.

Under his direction, in 2004 Trillium became the first multi-site hospital to become ISO 14001 registered for environmental health. That means the International organization for Standardization recognized Trillium’s progressive Environmental Management System and its programs that address key environmental impacts, including energy conservation, water quality, hazardous materials management, waste reduction and emissions management. (more…)

When Reg Perkin was a kid, Toronto Township comprised 10,000 people and lots of fruit trees.  In fact, during World War II, he occasionally took a day off from high school to pick fruit.

“Some of the farmers for whom I picked fruit became my patients.”

Dr. Perkin began private practice in 1956 on Dixie Road, eventually building the family practice group that is now Dixie Road Medical Associates.  He was one of the original staff members of Queensway General Hospital when it opened and joined the staff of South Peel Hospital when it opened in 1958.

“The opening of the hospitals made everything possible here,” he says.

Dr. Perkin also taught at the University of Toronto. Working with a small group of other physicians, he brought family medicine into the academic setting, leading to the creation of the Department of Family and Community Medicine in 1969.

During his career as a teacher and a family doctor, he watched the relationship between the family doctor and the patient change whenever hospitalization was required.

“The care of patients has been moving more and more in the direction of consultants because the people being admitted to hospital were more seriously ill.   Family physicians were working under a lot of pressure (and might not be able to participate in hospital care),” he says. (more…)

A weekly trip to the hospital may not sound like the route to relaxation but, for high school student Matthew Casaca, his every-Monday volunteer stint at Trillium is a great way to unwind.

“Being a volunteer eliminates stress because you’re doing something productive,” he says.

A volunteer since 2006, Matthew Casaca is now in his last year at  Philip Pocock Catholic Secondary School in Mississauga.  “I started volunteering because I needed to put in volunteer hours for my high school diploma.  I found I liked it so much, I stayed long after I’d done my 40 hours.”

Matthew Casaca is a hospitality volunteer, showing people around the hospital. (more…)

They looked like giant Christmas Stockings.

In fact, they were baggy green “surgical stockings” worn by patients during surgery. Along with other volunteers, Ann Mackay sewed the surgical stockings – and other linens – so the new Queensway General Hospital operating room would have a full supply when it opened.

“This hospital was built on a potato field,” she says. “We started from scratch.”

Besides provisioning the operating room, the volunteers made gifts to be sold in the hospital gift shop. They also bought a bus. (more…)

In a word, Vladimir Sluzar says working at the same hospital his father, Roman Sluzar, helped open has been an honour.

Dr. Roman Sluzar, who retired in 1996, was South Peel Hospital’s first anaesthetist.

“I was finishing my course at McGill when a fellow student said that Dr. (L. G.) Brayley was building a new hospital in what was then Cooksville. Dr. Brayley, first chief of staff, was receptive.

Vladimir –- who would become Dr. Vladimir Sluzar, cardiologist –- has cherished memories of walking along the halls of South Peel Hospital as a little boy when his Dad would take him on rounds. “We’d be greeted not just by doctors and nurses but by everyone on the staff including orderlies and maintenance employees.” He says his Dad not only knew everyone’s name but their families as well. (more…)

Merritt Henderson joined South Peel Hospital in April 1958, just weeks before the first patient was admitted.

A chartered accountant, he was hired by Administrator Ray Copeland as office manager and accountant, charged with acquiring staff and equipment.

“I was delighted to learn that the new facility was paid for, fully,” he says, adding that he was less happy to learn there was no operating capital. “Each month brought the challenge of deciding which bills would be paid.” It was a situation that Henderson quickly rectified; for the next 35 years, (more…)

Virginia Gardhouse’s employee number at Queensway General Hospital was 10. In July 1956, she was hired as operating room supervisor before there was an operating room to supervise.

Unpacking equipment and setting up the operating room, the first employees took breaks by walking down the service road to a gas station with a lunch counter.

“It was such a nice, friendly place to work,” she remembers. “It was almost like a family because it was so small.”

“I was always addressed formally as Miss Gardhouse and I always addressed the doctors and nurses in the same way,” she says. “At least in professional situations.”

In August, the hospital was ready for patients and, along with others, Virginia Gardhouse anticipated the first surgery scheduled for 8 a.m. (more…)

She was a nursing assistant during the war, filling in at St. Joseph’s Hospital because there weren’t any hospitals “out here”. She is also a 55-year veteran of volunteer work at Queensway General Hospital and Trillium Health Centre.

“My heart has always been in hospital work,” Ruby West says.
Ruby’s husband, Kenneth West, became one of the early advocates for what became the Queensway General Hospital — there’s a wing named in his honour — and Ruby canvassed for contributions in the communities the hospital would serve. (more…)

Laurie Gehrling got the first computer at The Mississauga Hospital, a reflection of the fact that “we did a lot of typing in the nursing administration office!”

Starting as a clerk typist 3, Laurie Gehrling joined the nursing office staff in 1982. Her mother, Mary Chittick, who had been a nurse at South Peel since 1959, told her about the job posting. Mary Chittick retired in 1984.

“We went from typewriters to computers to the BlackBerry,” Laurie says. “The volume of work has changed,” she adds, “now that technology drives the pace.” (more…)

When John Magill helped preside over the amalgamation of the Queensway General Hospital and Mississauga Hospital, there was one surprise that inspired his confidence in the future.

“Very early on and much to everyone’s amazement and relief, staff focus groups representing our population at every level simply said ‘just get on with it’,” he says. “Obviously, something better was on offer and they were looking forward to it.”

Even so, there were caveats.

“They did insist on two things. They wanted a learning organization that would allow them to grow and they wanted some sense of momentum to reflect that things were moving forward.” (more…)