health unit ceo theresa marentette retires
the windsor-essex county health unit ceo ended her career on wednesday following more than three decades with the organization.
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theresa marentette, outgoing ceo of the windsor-essex county health unit, is pictured in her office on her last day of work, on wednesday, june 30, 2021.
dax melmer
/
windsor star
by: taylor campbell theresa marentette expects her first day of retirement to include a long walk and time to reflect.
the windsor-essex county health unit ceo ended her career on wednesday following more than three decades with the organization.
marentette, whose life has been consumed by the covid-19 pandemic for the past 15 months, said she has not had a day off in “a long time.” during her final live pandemic briefing on youtube, she said she plans to spend some of her newfound time thinking about the health unit’s “amazing” senior leadership team, middle management team, and staff, and the relationships they’ve built over the last year “that have really come to shine to support our whole community.”
after beginning her career as a nurse at the salvation army grace hospital, marentette joined the local health unit as a public health nurse in 1989. in the years since, she managed several departments from school health, infectious disease and oral health before being named director of health protection and chief nursing officer in 2013. she assumed her role as ceo in 2017.
succeeding marentette as ceo is nicole dupuis, who has served as the health unit’s director of health promotion since 2014 and who has “worked so closely together” with marentette in the years following.
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“my advice (to dupuis) is to take it one day at a time,” she said. “i will always support her — i’ll be travelling eventually, but i’m available always to support nicole and she knows that.
“taking it one day at a time has worked for us through this pandemic and doing the best we can. i think she’s already there.”
marentette said the community is now further along with the covid-19 vaccine rollout than she anticipated it would be when she first announced her retirement in early april.
so far, more than 74 per cent of windsor-essex adults have received at least one dose of a covid-19 vaccine, and nearly 45 per cent of adults are fully vaccinated.
wednesday’s local covid-19 statistics:
- total cases: 16,830
- new cases: 10
– 1 travel related
– 5 under investigation
- active cases: 60
- covid deaths: 435
- hospitalized cases: 16 (6 in icu)
- resolved cases: 16,335
- variant of concern cases: 1,948
– 4 cases of the beta (b.1.351) variant, which was first sequenced in south africa
– 16 cases of the gamma (p.1) variant, which was first sequenced in brazil
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– 1 case of the kappa (b.1.617.1) variant, which was first sequenced in india
– 3 cases of the delta (b.1.617.2) variant, which was first sequenced in india
– 136 uncategorized variant cases
- workplace outbreaks: 1
- community outbreaks: 1
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