There were lots of words of praise yesterday about how good the care at the Carlo Fidani Cancer Centre is, as Health Minister George Smitherman visited Credit Valley Hospital to deliver a $5 million cheque,
You could dismiss many of them as the pronouncements of politicians looking at an Oct. 4 election date with the public, or administrators seeking applause for their own accomplishments.
But you could not dismiss the sincerity of CVH Chair Cheryl Englander when she stepped to the podium and talked about her own battle with cancer and the extraordinary treatment she got at the hospital.
As she sat at the opening of the cancer centre June 9, 2005, Englander was torn by conflicting emotions. “As (then) vice-chair of Credit Valley Hospital, I was bursting with pride and optimism,” Englander related yesterday at the celebration of the installation of a fourth linear accelerator for radiation treatment.
“As I sat there as Cheryl Englander, a resident of the community, I was overwhelmed and just a little bit frightened. You see, I had received a diagnosis of breast cancer just a few weeks earlier. I was recovering from one surgery, about to have another and knew that radiation and, perhaps, chemotherapy, lay ahead of me.”
Her family doctor works from Trillium Health Centre. He wanted her to go to Princess Margaret for treatment but Englander, naturally, wanted to use the brand new centre, 10 minutes from her home and a lot more welcoming in its design.
In an interview after yesterday’s celebration, Englander recalled how the CVH design team went out of its way to make the cancer centre a welcoming space, from the towering Douglas fir beams that suggest an indoor forest, to the plants and trees and fireplaces, and the radiation bunkers that don’t have any steel doors to clang shut, leaving patients to feel like they are alone and imprisoned by their disease.
“It sets a whole tone for your psyche about how optimistic you might feel,” says the 55-year-old.
Because the centre had just opened and so many personnel were brand new, Englander was able to move through the system anonymously. “I just wanted to go through it like everyone else does,” said Englander, who believes she was the second patient treated on linear accelerator No. 3.
“Because I’m on the board, I paid attention to how the staff interacted with patients. What I saw was that anyone going through this will get the same exceptional care that I did.”
In fact when she later toured the hospital as chair, many of her caregivers realized for the first time that she was on the board.
In her speech, Englander said that, “As I drove here every morning, five days a week for six weeks, I was very aware of the fact that my no-hassle trip here and the calm, healing atmosphere I encountered allowed me the strength and determination to go to work after my treatments.”
She added, “I guess you could say I got better care than I asked for.”
Englander, who was blessed with early detection, a state-of-the-art centre and caring and well-trained staff, laughs when it is suggested she has become a sort of poster adult for the hospital.
In her case, “world class health care right here,” has become substance, not just a fundraising campaign slogan.