Dear Health PEI staff,
I've been at Health PEI since Monday – it’s been a whirlwind of a week! I want to thank each of you for the warm Island welcome. It is an absolute privilege to take on the position of CEO and share in your passion for providing excellent care to Islanders.
My sincerest thank you to Corinne Rowswell for her exemplary service in the role of interim CEO. She has been so gracious with her time and has agreed to continue to help with the transition until the end of the month.
I have spent the first days meeting with Health PEI staff, our community and government partners. I have heard loud and clear from everyone that Health PEI has intensely dedicated staff and my focus is supporting you as we further improve healthcare delivery and access.
We’ll do that by continuing to progress our work on Patient Medical Homes, which are the envy of the country. We’ll also focus on optimizing and building robust provincial services to support the delivery of high-quality care to all residents, clients and communities.
With that in mind, I want to share my three immediate priorities for our work together:
- Recruitment: Align and work with collaborators (DHW & PSC) to implement the infrastructure needed to address immediate and short-term recruitment challenges.
- Support to Staff: Work with staff across Health PEI to identify and implement local solutions to provide relief and support to our workforce
- Critical Care: Deliver a plan to ensure robust and sustainable critical care services are available to all communities.
- Next week, I will be in Summerside, meeting with staff, physicians, and community partners.
We’ll be scheduling similar visits across the province in the weeks ahead – I look forward to hearing from you as we find solutions to improve care together. Please reach out if you would like to plan a visit to your location.
Health PEI has so much to be proud of. Most of all, your work and dedication are obvious to Islanders and to anyone learning about the system! I am excited to be a part of the bright future of this organization and to work alongside all of you.
Talk soon,
Melanie “Mel” Fraser (she/her)
CEO