DEI Report

Letter from our Chief People Officer

Celebrating a Culture of Inclusion

At Northern Light Health, our promise to the people of Maine, is that we will make healthcare work for you! We do this by fostering a culture of caring that begins with caring for one another and for the diverse needs of the people we serve. To be effective in this essential work, we must be an organization that promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion, and not just through meaningful dialogue, but also actionable steps to evolve and grow our culture. I am so very proud of all the work that my colleagues from across the system have done to improve our diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) culture through their words and actions. In the pages of this report, you can see those results and learn more about the many people of all backgrounds, races, religions, ages, abilities, and identities working together on this singular, important cause. I’d like to offer a heartfelt thank you to those who are contributing to this work each day: our employees, family members, and members of our communities. They include the members of our DEI councils across the system who meet regularly to provide their valued input into our policy improvements. They are the colleagues who everyday are supporting diversity through simple but meaningful actions and allyship to show caring and support for one another! Thank you for your continued interest and support.

“I was amazed by the people here in Maine! Everyone is so nice and so welcoming. I never met someone who was not nice.”

S he wears a winter jacket that covers her body from head to toe from November to April, but while she is still getting use to the cold Maine winters, Melissa Chetty, RN, says the warmth and hospitality of her “work family” at Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center has solidified this native South African’s desire to call Bangor her new home. “We don’t have any snow back home and the coldest it gets in South Africa is like 60 degrees. So, below freezing temperatures and driving in the snow and shoveling snow was a big adjustment,” shares Chetty. But she says that she was welcomed with open arms when she first came to Bangor in June of 2018. At the time, she was working as a travelling nurse for O’Grady Peyton under a two-year contract. Although she had travelled extensively across Europe, Asia, and Africa for leisure, it was the first time she had worked in a foreign country.

“I was amazed by the people here in Maine! Everyone is so nice and so welcoming. I never met someone who was not nice.” One of the people that she credits with making her transition so easy was co-worker, Sherene Smith-Gordon, who was also a travelling nurse from Jamaica who had come to Bangor two years earlier than Melissa, and also decided to stay. “She is like my best friend now. She was so wonderful to me!” Both women are now full-time employees of Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center. Melissa works in the cardiac operating room and Sherene works in the intensive care unit. And they are both examples of the culture of caring and diversity that makes Northern Light Health a better, richer place.

Paul Bolin, MBA, SPHR, SHRM-SCP Senior Vice President Chief People Officer Northern Light Health

Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilization. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion | Fall 2022 | 3