Elizabeth Hasler, Schizophrenia Clinic, Southlake Regional Health Centre

Mrs. Elizabeth Hasler, better known as Liz, is one of our senior most nursing staff members in our department of Psychiatry; she is the team leader for our Schizophrenia Clinic. She recently was presented a staff loyalty award after completing thirty years at Southlake Regional Health Centre. She manages a heavy case load of complex patients who have schizophrenia, which is a challenging population.

Her work experience is quite broad, with a wide scope of patient skills. Mrs. Hasler started her career at Southlake Regional Health Centre in 1973 at surgical floor. In 1977 she took maternity leave then returned as part time. In 1986 she worked at a Rehabilitation unit, and also worked on the Nurses Float team, and chronic care. In 2000 Mrs. Hasler worked on neurology and orthopedic rehabilitation unit. In 2006 Mrs. Hasler started her full time position in Adult Mental Health inpatients

Since 2013, Mrs. Hasler has been the team leader for the Schizophrenia program on full time basis. She has had a great career at Southlake Regional Health Centre, we consider ourselves very fortunate that she chose Mental Health as her final chapter in nursing.

Mrs. Hasler usually starts her day much earlier than her scheduled time. All the team members appreciate her professional attitude, her ability to work long hours and her calm manner. She is always smiling, which puts all the patients and staff at ease.  All the work deadlines are easily met due to her hard work. She is respectful towards her colleagues and non-judgemental towards her patients. Her confident manner is underpinned with solid years of experience and a vast clinical knowledge.

Her commitment to her patients and staff is outstanding. Mrs. Hasler is the face of providing excellence in patient-centred care i.e. her work days start early to try and accommodate schizophrenia patients that have jobs to go to and she meets them before the patient leaves for work sometimes as early as 0630 AM. She works tirelessly to ensure patients have their medications whether it is on inpatients or outpatients, organizing with both nurses and pharmacists to have meds ready when patient needs them.  She ensures smooth transitions of care from inpatients to the outpatient schizophrenia program, her hand overs with patients, their carers and families are considered to be of superior quality. She spends considerable time with families and care givers as well to support, teach and reassure to provide best possible psychoeducation. Her peers describe her as a constant learner who makes her presence felt at every educational opportunity, she actively participates, even at her own spare time and using her own expenses, which is highly creditable. Her organizational and prioritizing skills are impeccable, for example she arrives early, and will not leave the unit until all needs are met whether it is a patient or the team needs help. She practices very safely, if she is unaware of a particular clinical matter, she seeks to find answers for the patient, staff and herself.  She is believed to be genuine, sincere, an ultimate professional, respectful, compassionate about mental health issues and her patients.

Mrs. Hasler is quite knowledgeable, as evident in her day to day work. She is a reliable and dedicated nurse. It is a common perception in our department that –‘If Liz is around, things will not go wrong.’  She has good understanding of psychotropic medications, and invariably includes psychosocial approach in the treatment plans. Often clinicians have benefited of getting better psychodynamic formulation of patients, after discussing with Mrs. Hasler.

Mrs. Hasler is retiring from her job, by the end of this year, but this has not deterred her enthusiasm in any way. Her zeal to work hard is infectious; it promotes a healthy work environment. She is a regular attendee at the entire local and regional educational programme and all the speakers recognize her avid learning attitude, as she is very vocal during the discussions.

On umpteen occasions, I have seen Mrs. Hasler rise up to the challenges secondary to the clinical issues and dealing with them successfully. Her experience is a great clinical asset, which almost all of the psychiatrist colleagues truly admire and appreciate. Often, she ably resolves the issues, even before others around her can realize. Her pedantic working style, where she takes care of even minutest details is worth applauding. Her demeanor with psychiatric patients is a perfect role model example for younger staff in our department of mental health. She has very high professional standards. Her knowledge of Mental Health Act is of high quality.

We sincerely request the panel to consider Mrs. Elizabeth Hasler, RN, Mental Health for this prestigious award.

Nominated by: Dr Gaurav Mehta and Janet Giannini