“Re-imagined, re-invigorated” JGH Board of Governors holds first meeting

As the JGH Board of Governors prepared to get down to business at its historic inaugural meeting on January 28, President Allen Rubin took a few introductory minutes to remind his fellow members that the new Board is “empowered to make crucial decisions that affect the ability of the Jewish General Hospital to provide its patients with care of superior quality.

“It is their well-being that will be the focus of this Board, just as it has been for every Board, all the way back to the opening of the hospital in 1934.”

The Board of Governors was created as a consequence of last year’s extensive reform of Quebec’s public healthcare system. A key element of the reorganization was to eliminate Boards of Directors in individual healthcare institutions. Instead, the province has been divided into more than 30 healthcare networks, each with a Board of Directors that oversees the various facilities in its network. The JGH belongs to the Integrated Health and Social Services University Network for West-Central Montreal.

However, any healthcare facility with a unique identity and legacy is also entitled to create its own Board of Governors, which is now in place at the JGH. Mr. Rubin told his colleagues this governing body has been “newly re-imagined, re-invigorated and restructured to meet the evolving needs of this hospital.

“Our obligation is to safeguard and administer this hospital’s distinctive cultural identity, its bilingual status, its clinical and academic mission, its values and legacy, and its ownership and control over its own property, assets and branding.”

Mr. Rubin also noted that the Board of Governors serves as “the link between 81 years of history and a new era in which the JGH will continue to earn the respect of its lay leaders and volunteers, the admiration of its staff, and most importantly, the gratitude of its patients.

“By acknowledging the legacy of the past and embracing the new reality of the present, I am certain we can be of crucial importance in building a future for this hospital that all of us can continue to be proud of.”