Staff recognized for long service
Lynn Lau
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Jun 01/01) - Staff at Stanton Regional Hospital were recognized with long-term service awards at a luncheon Tuesday.
The time served by the 39 staff recognized worked out to 570 years, said Dennis Cleaver, CEO of the Stanton Regional Health Board.
"Given the difficult recruitment climate that Canada finds itself in today, that's a large number of staff receiving long service recognition," Cleaver said.
Among the staff recognized: Linda Turner, a materials manager, who started out at the hospital 15 years ago as a security guard, Dr. Margaret-Anne Woodside, a family practitioner who has delivered many of the region's babies during her two decade tenure, and Dr. Pierre Lessard, a respected obstetrician/gynocologist who will retire in July, after almost 21 years at Stanton.
Lessard, 54, built a career of improving the obstetrics and gynocological services in the Western Arctic.
In 1994, he started a committee under the Society of Obstetricians and Gynocologists of Canada to examine the health issues facing aboriginal people. In 1990, the hospital's Board of Management created an education award bearing Lessard's name, to recognize his 10 years of involvment in continuing medical education.
"Twenty-one years is good," Lessard reflected. "It's time to go. You come, you give and give and give, and at some point, you say, it's time to do somthing different. It's time to be with family."
After his retirement, Lessard will move to Nova Scotia with his wife Paula and daughter Jocelyne, 14.
Their eldest daughter Elise, 16, moved there last year to attend school.
