St. Joseph’s Hospice Sarnia Lambton has named its next executive director.
Kelly Chartrand, director of resident services at the hospice since 2020, will become executive director at the end of March following the retirement of Larry Lafranier.
Lafranier has been executive director since 2014.
Chartrand’s appointment was announced by the board of directors for the charity, which operates a 10-bed hospice in Sarnia, as well as support programs and services.
“I’m just very honored to continue the work of our dedicated team,” Chartrand said. “It has been a pleasure working in my role, currently, and really an exciting time to look forward to in the future.
Chartrand grew up in Sarnia and began working in Toronto in emergency and trauma, and neonatal intensive care after graduating in 1999 as a registered nurse.
“We had the opportunity to come back to Sarnia just as we were expecting children, so we decided to come home,” she said.
That was in 2006, and Chartrand worked in labor and deliver, post-partum and special care nursery as a staff nurse at Bluewater Health in Sarnia.
She became the charge nurse in the maternal infant child unit in 2017 and later manager. She went on to be a manager in the surgical program.
Chartrand said she was drawn to St. Joseph’s by “the wonderful work that has already been done at hospice and what we offer our community.”
As director of resident services, Chartrand said her current job is about meeting the operational needs of the 10-bed residence at hospice.
“With the hiring of Kelly, we have someone the board has absolute confidence in, who will serve the Sarnia Lambton community well,” board chairperson Paul Line said in a news release.
“It wasn’t until I started working here that I recognized now amazing it is,” Chartrand said. “It truly is a special place.”
Having worked with patients at the beginning of life and at its end, Chartrand said she has found there are similarities.
“When you hear the news of an impending birth, as when you hear the news of a terminal illness, you prepare for that moment,” she said.
That includes reaching out for community support, such as hospice and its resource centre, Chartrand said.
When it’s time for a patient to be admitted to hospice, “we are there to continue that journey with the family members and the resident to ensure we’re bringing the best quality of life to them in their last days,” she said.
Looking ahead to her new role, Chartrand spoke about how the community is moving ahead with a local Ontario Health Team.
“I think this is an extremely exciting time, not only with St. Joseph’s Hospice but our community partners” and an opportunity to make hospice “the hub for all resources when it relates to end-of-life care,” she said.
“That includes not only residents care, but supportive services. Caring for the family members, the caregivers and the extended family of those we have in our care.”
There are 240 volunteers at hospice in its resource center and residence, as well as 46 employees.
The funding model hospice works under is one of the challenges it faces, Chartrand said.
“We are not a fully funded organization,” she said.
Funding hospice receives from the province covers 43 per cent of its costs and the balance, about $2 million this coming year, has to be raised in the community, she said.
“It is not a sustainable funding model,” Chartrand said.
That’s a message that officials at hospice have been delivering to provincial officials, she said.