MONTREAL — Henri Elbaz, right, constantly challenged staff to find a better way of doing things to ultimately improve patient care, says the person who probably worked most closely with him for many years at the Jewish General Hospital (JGH).

While Elbaz, who has retired as executive director of the JGH, expected the best from those who answered to him, “he demanded much greater effort from himself,” says Carolyn Martin, who was his executive assistant for 20 years. “That’s why his car could often be spotted in the hospital’s parking lot from the wee hours of the morning until late at night, usually seven days a week.”

Past president Bram Gelfand put it more directly: “Henri happens to be one of the most relentless taskmasters I have ever encountered.”

During Elbaz’s 16 years of stewardship, the JGH has gone from being the pride of the Jewish community to a full-fledged university teaching hospital, renowned for its specialization in cancer, cardiology and other areas, as well as for its research and its technological innovation. It has a reputation in Quebec City as one of the best-run hospitals in the province.

In recent years, the JGH has undergone major expansion and renovation, much of it through many millions of dollars in private fundraising. Elbaz estimates that during his time at the helm, about 500,000 square feet of space has been added, a growth of 35 to 40 per cent, although the number of beds has remained constant at about 630.

Three years ago, the JGH also purchased the six-acre property of a neighbouring convent on Côte des Neiges Road, an area almost equal to that which the hospital had before.

Only a small part of it is being used now, mainly to house the Herzl Family Practice Centre.

Elbaz is confident that the land will be fully developed as part of a plan for further expansion over the next few years. Elbaz’s final view from his office window was a construction site on Côte Ste. Catherine Road, where a radiology oncology department, four times the size of the current unit and vastly upgraded, was being built three stories underground. A new main entrance above it will be three stories high.

At 57 and fit, Elbaz said he decided to leave while he was still at the top of his game. The JGH is on a solid financial footing and well-positioned for the future, he said.

He worked at the JGH for a total of 32 years, starting as director of administrative services, and was only the fourth executive director in its 74-year history. He had an MBA from Concordia University, but no background in health-care administration. He worked for the Montreal Stock Exchange before being hired by the hospital.

It was unusual at the time for a francophone to join the management of the JGH, and his appointment would prove to be wise because Quebec was on the verge of changing irrevocably in 1976.

One goal eluded Elbaz, however: obtaining the coveted CHU (Centre Hospitalier Universitaire) status for the JGH, which the McGill University Health Centre, and the Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM), for example, have.

To receive this designation from the Quebec government, a hospital must provide and teach the highest-level of specialized care and conduct top-notch research.

“We meet and surpass all the criteria. I do not understand why the government is refusing… The government has said that there should be only one CHU per university, but the U de M has two affiliated CHUs – CHUM and Ste. Justine,” Elbaz said in an interview.

The lack of the CHU adversely affects the hospital’s ability to recruit top-flight doctors, he said.

The government offered the JGH a new designation created last year called Centre Affiliée Universitaire Suprarégionale. The Maisonneuve-Rosemont and Sacré-Coeur hospitals have this status.

“But this is like asking a professional athlete to go play in the juniors,” Elbaz said.

Elbaz is not exactly retiring. He has already begun acting as a consultant in the health-care bureaucracy and lecturing in the U de M’s health administration school.

“Of course, I will be available to the JGH whenever or wherever they need me,” he said.

For now, he is looking forward to finding some balance in his life that will include time for volunteer work and leisure, like getting in a day of skiing this season, something he has not been able to do in 16 years.

But he does not regret the intense years he put in at the JGH. “This was not a job; it was a spiritual mission.”

He also expects to become a vocal advocate for the preservation of public health care. He set the tone a couple of months ago in a speech before the Montreal Board of Trade in which he warned that creeping privatization will have a negative effect on the availability of public care.

Elbaz rejects the recommendation by former health minister Claude Castonguay, author of a recent report on the financing of health care, that hospitals should regard patients as “sources of revenue.”

“If we adopt that frame of reasoning, how can we make sure that hospitals do not make admissions or conduct tests that are unnecessary because it will generate revenue?”

Elbaz was dedicated to preserving the Jewish character of the JGH, first and foremost, out of respect for the vision of its founders.

Today, only 27 per cent of patients are Jewish and about 15 per cent of the staff (doctors are about 50 per cent). “But 95 per cent of the Jewish community use our services,” he said.

He said he is not at all concerned about the questions regarding the need for a Jewish public hospital and particularly about the maintenance of kashrut, notably during the “reasonable accommodation” debate. He is confident that the government has no intention of restricting the JGH’s ability to keep kosher or maintain other Jewish observances.

“These question just told me that we have some work to do to make ourselves better known with other people,” Elbaz said.

He has tried to clear up many of the misconceptions, often coming from well-informed people, about why a Jewish hospital was established in the 1930s and about kosher food. “Some see these questions as an insult, but I see it as an opportunity.”

Tributes poured in for Elbaz, for his passion and vision. “He had a dream to build Montreal’s best hospital and this is what he has accomplished,” said Myer Bick, president and CEO of the JGH Foundation. “By devoting his life to this worthy goal, he has fulfilled his great ambition and done us all proud.”

Elbaz is succeeded by Dr. Hartley Stern, a colorectal surgeon from the Ottawa Hospital.