Headwaters hospital CEO Stacey Daub stepping down from role

Written By MIKE BAKER

Stacey Daub, the popular President and CEO of Headwaters Health Care Centre (HHCC), will be vacating her position in October.

Reports of her leaving spread throughout the community earlier this week, staff at the hospital having known for several days that Ms. Daub was stepping down from her role. In a release to the Citizen Tuesday morning, the CEO said family was a huge determining factor in her decision to walk away from what she once described as a dream position.

“It was with a very heavy heart that I am leaving Headwaters Health Care Centre. Sometimes in your life your professional and personal lives come together, and you find yourself having to make a very difficult decision. My decision to resign from Headwaters is one of those times for me,” Ms. Daub said. “With my need to increase support to an aging family member, an opportunity to work closer to home to enable me to do that, I have made the decision to leave a place I truly love.”

Ms. Daub enjoyed a fruitful 2 1/2-year stint at the helm of our local hospital. Formally hired in November 2016 to replace the retiring Liz Ruegg, she officially started her role in January of 2017 and immediately set out to make her mark on the facility. After our first sit-down interview, we described Ms. Daub as being a woman on a mission; from the moment she walked through the doors at HHCC, Stacey wanted to ensure the community felt a part of the hospital, while also mapping out a clear vision for its immediate future.

With that, she was the driving force behind the hospital's new three-year strategic plan, unveiled to the public in June. The document outlined three key directives for staff to focus on between now and 2022 – ‘Getting Even Better', ‘Nothing About You, Without You' and ‘Integrated Care Closer to Home'. 

While she's disappointed she won't be around to witness the fruits of that plan, Ms. Daub is proud of the role she played in its implementation.

“I consider myself to be very lucky to have played a small part in this incredible hospital's history and work to serve its community, and I wish the hospital and the entire community the best of luck for the future,” Ms. Daub said. “I will leave knowing that patients and the community will continue to be served by the best community hospital in Ontario, and that Headwaters, and its community partners, will truly be a trailblazer in the next evolution of health care in Ontario.”

Lori Ker, Chair of the HHCC Board of Directors, spoke highly of the job Ms. Daub has done, while confirming the recruitment process to find her successor was already well underway.

“We are incredibly proud of the work we have done together with Stacey over the last three years – reconnecting with our community and launching a new Strategic Plan that is the blueprint for the future of the hospital and our work with our community,” Ms. Ker stated. “We are committed now to recruiting a new leader who can build on our work to date and who will lead us positively into the future.”

She concluded, “While we know it will be hard to say goodbye to Stacey, we genuinely wish her all the best in her future endeavours.”

As well as driving the hospital's extensive 18-month Imagine Headwaters campaign, which culminated in the formation of its new Strategic Plan, Ms. Daub oversaw the construction, unveiling and subsequent opening of HHCC's new Ambulatory Care Centre, while also leading the charge on renovation projects to rejuvenate the hospital's main lobby and emergency department, which will begin in the next 12 months. 

Perhaps most key though was the role Ms. Daub played in the community's bid to become a provincial health care leader. It was revealed on July 18 that the Ministry of Health had sent notification to the Hills of Headwaters Collaborative that they were one of 31 regional teams selected to proceed to the next step in potentially becoming an Ontario Health Team. The collaborative was given until Oct. 9 to submit its application.

It is assumed that Ms. Daub will be sticking around long enough to help, where she can, with that process. 

That move comes after Christine Elliott, Ontario's Minister of Health, announced in February the significant restructuring of Ontario's health care system – integrating provincial agencies and specialized provincial programs into a single agency called Ontario Health. The move had been described as being a new way of organizing and delivering services for communities across Ontario.

Should the Headwaters region be successful in its bid to become of those teams – a highly coveted position, Ms. Daub will have certainly followed through on her very first promise to make a difference to health care in Dufferin and Caledon.