WINNIPEG -- The CEO of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority said he is leaving his job with the health authority, less than a year after it was announced he had accepted the role on a permanent basis.
Réal Cloutier had served as CEO on a temporary basis prior to that, meaning the organization is losing the person who has been at the helm for the past 2 ½ years, an era the WRHA describes as a “period of important and unprecedented change.”
It’s been two years since the first of three emergency rooms in Winnipeg were closed and replaced with urgent care centres, along with other changes in the health care system under the Pallister government.
“With the largest elements of change within our Winnipeg region now compete, I feel this is the right time for me to step away to spend more time with my family and enjoy my life outside the office,” Cloutier said in news release Thursday that noted he was among the WRHA’s first ten employees when it was created in 1997.
Karen Dunlop, the chair of the WRHA board, said the Cloutier’s resignation was accepted with mixed emotion and that the board will focus efforts on figuring out how to make sure the transition to new leadership is made seamlessly.
The WRHA said Cloutier will stay in his role until an interim CEO is in place.
