It has been a fun and inspiring few days for our teams as we celebrated Fierté Sudbury Pride at the Ramsey Lake Health Centre and Sudbury Outpatient Centre.
At HSN, we aspire to provide an inclusive and safe place where people from the 2SLGBTQIA+ community can be their authentic selves as employees, physicians, medical learners, volunteers and patients and our Pride celebrations have become an important part of that commitment.
The RLHC celebration opened with a song and prayer from Indigenous Elder Martina Osawamick from Wikwemikong and close to 100 attendees heard from inspiring speakers such as HSN CEO David McNeil, Manager of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Racism Suchita Bali, IDEAA committee member Matthew Frederick, Patient and Family Advisor and Transgender activist Rita O’Link, HSN President and Chief Development Officer Anthony Keating and Clinical Lead for Social Accountability, Dr. Alex Anawati.
Matthew spoke about the importance of healthcare leaders modeling allyship for their staff. “We must publicly support IDEAA initiatives and continue to educate ourselves on diversity and integrate these principles into our decision making processes as part of our commitment to social accountability. We must empower our teams to build up and foster a culture where allyship is part of our daily operations.”
Rita shared personal anecdotes on how the patient experience has improved at HSN over the past few years for 2SLGBTQIA+ community members. “HSN has come a long way in the last six years. Being addressed by preferred name and pronouns when we are receiving medical care is huge.”
Rita was also happy to see so many HSN staff wearing special Pride themed lanyards and encouraged every staff member to start wearing one. “These lanyards can start a conversation,” said Rita. “They can make a patient feel safer.”
The celebrations continued with a beautiful new Pride sidewalk mural added at the Sudbury Outpatient Centre as well as touching up the Pride sidewalk we first painted in 2023 at the Ramsey Lake Health Centre South entrance.