No reasons were given after five of the seven directors with the Sydenham District Hospital’s Board handed in their resignation this week.
The volunteer board members who resigned include chair Allen Klink, and directors Paul Weese, Ted Dalios, Ed Freeburn and Wendy Weston. The only remaining members on the board are Gary Martin and Herb John.
Brenda Richardson, chair of the executive committee for the tri-board of directors, said she couldn’t discuss the reasons why the people resigned.
“At this point in time, I’m not in a position to disclose really any details of the resignations. They are voluntary, and they were provided in confidence to the tri-board and those folks are volunteers, and we need to respect their confidentiality,” she said. “We’re basically working through the next steps for what we have to do as a tri-board.”
Richardson said with the five resignations, and given the governance structure for the tri-board, which requires a minimum of four elected directors of each board present at meetings, the May 6 meeting had to be cancelled.
“In the past we’ve never had this volume of resignations, but we had from time to time had resignations,” she said. “We will be meeting with the remaining Sydenham board members and the other two boards to discuss the situation.”
Wallaceburg Coun. Jeff Wesley told said he is not sure what the reasons for these resignations are.
“The (Save Our Sydenham committee) has stated and put forth a slate for the annual general meeting in June which did include some current board members,” Wesley said. “If they want to call the AGM early, we have a very competent slate of directors ready to go. I hope this is not a ploy or a strategy … all we want for SDH is a board comprised of local SDH catchment area directors.”
The annual general meeting for the tri-board had been slated for June 26.
Richardson said it is not known whether the meeting will be pushed up, or if the vacancies will be filled beforehand.
“We aren’t moving swiftly, we are wanting to take our time and make sure that we’re actually making the right decisions,” she said. “We want to involve all the appropriate parties that need to be involved in this. It will be a process in the making and we have to consider all kinds of stakeholders in this.”
Richardson said this situation does not affect the daily operations at any of the campuses of the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance.
