Building a healthier Winnipeg

photography by Grajewski Fotograph Inc.

Arlene Wilgosh knew she wanted to go into health care at a young age, thanks to her best friend’s mother who was a nurse. “She would come home after shifts and I would see her in her uniform,” she recalls. “At the same time—and this will tell you how old I am—Dr. Kildare was one of the (biggest) shows on TV and I started to watch that.” After she debated whether to become a schoolteacher or a nurse, the latter finally won out.

That decision has served her well, to say the least. Wilgosh now heads the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, succeeding Dr. Brian Postl as president and chief executive officer after he announced his resignation and earning the distinction of being the first woman and nurse to hold the position. “Nurses and doctors, men and women, all come at things a little bit differently, so I’ll have my own approach to team building, partnership development and building relationships,” she says.

And though the WRHA has more than 28,000 employees, operates or funds more than 200 health service facilities and programs and serves hundreds of thousands of people, Wilgosh remains unassuming and down-to-earth, her patient-centred approach earning her accolades in the industry.

Born and raised in Minnedosa, the lifelong Manitoban has a long history of working in health care—36 years, to be precise. Receiving her nursing diploma at the Winnipeg General Hospital and her bachelor's degree at the University of Manitoba, she started her career as a nurse at the Health Sciences Centre, but later moved on to hold various leadership roles. “My first management position—they called them ‘team leaders’ in those days—was an assistant head nurse position, because I didn’t like working the night shift,” she says.

After taking some management courses to further her training, she realized she had a knack for those leadership roles, which included acting vice-president of nursing at Victoria General Hospital. “Maybe it’s because I am the eldest child (in my family), but I have always liked to help people and direct things,” she says.

Focusing on her passion for patient care and health-care management, she shied away from frontline nursing and took on several management positions throughout the years, such as chief executive officer of the Red River Valley Health District in Morris—a precursor to regionalization—and executive director of the Regional Health Authorities of Manitoba.

Wilgosh was offered a number of positions without having to apply, and the provincial government eventually approached her to work as the assistant deputy minister for regional affairs with Manitoba Health. She later moved up the ranks to become deputy minister of the same department and was also the first woman and nurse in that position which she held for five years. “From a deputy minister of health’s perspective, five years is about 100 years in real life,” she says. “I was the longest-serving health deputy at the time that I left, so it was time for a change.”

Taking on the head position at the WRHA—after applying for the job—was ideal for Wilgosh, as it meant she could see more results from the decisions being made rather than working mainly in policy. “At the deputy level, you are that much further removed from seeing the impact of some of your decisions and connecting with the frontline providers,” she says. “I wanted to get closer to patient care, to the day-to-day operational decisions.”

And that’s what she would eventually like to accomplish during her stint as head of the WRHA, as well as to connect with and reach out more to the average Winnipeg citizen. On its end, the WHRA board is developing a new strategic plan, with one of the major directives being to foster public engagement.

“If you take a look at organizational development, it goes through different stages. The first stage is kind of setting up and getting yourself organized and established in who you are,” says Wilgosh. “Then you go into another phase, where you further develop and reach out and talk to people and look at different kinds of partnerships and improve on the initial work that we did.”

Improving the integration of health-care services is another issue Wilgosh is extremely passionate about and intends to focus on during her time with the WRHA. “With the integration of our services, we won’t have the hospital on one side and home care on the other side. Rather, we will make them work better together so that it is a more seamless service for the patient and focus on putting the patient’s perspective first,” she says. “The WRHA is a really large, dynamic organization, but I think we are really working to put the patient first.”

Putting the patients’ safety first—specifically, by moving the Patient Safety Initiative forward—is also a key area Wilgosh plans to address now that she is established in her position. “We have a very strong philosophy here that if you are going to fix something, you have to know that it’s broken and that there are changes or improvements you could make within the system. Focusing on patient safety and taking it to the next level is definitely an initiative I would like to focus on,” she says. “There are a lot of people here who are very passionate about moving that (and the integration of services) forward and need to be given the opportunity to do that. Hopefully I can help steer the ship in that direction.”

With her many years of experience in both frontline nursing and with the government, Wilgosh is more than prepared to tackle the tough role of president and CEO of the organization with an annual operating budget of nearly $2.1 billion dollars.

“If you take a look at the traditional role of nurses in health care, they are very often the team leader—the go-between between this doctor and that doctor, the doctor and the patient—they are sort of a coordinator,” she says. “It’s their natural instinct to take a look at the total environment of what’s happening to the patient.”

Her training in nursing also gives her a medical understanding of the terminology used, as well as the ability to connect with physicians and other health-care providers. “I really enjoy connecting with the people who are providing the actual care to the patients,” she says. Her ties to government, she adds, also allow her to have insight into how government works and how the WRHA needs to present items for consideration.

And though her new job keeps her plenty busy, Wilgosh still finds time to enjoy a few hobbies, which include winemaking, reading, traveling and spending time at the cottage with her husband and daughter, as well as time with her family in Minnedosa. She and her co-workers laugh about the irony that, after switching from nursing to management because she wanted a nine-to-five job, she is now working a position that calls for many late hours. But judging by the enthusiasm in her voice when discussing the health-care industry and her obvious passion for her new job, those long hours are well worth it.