Christina MacPherson

Chair

Tia grew up in the small town of Buckhams Bay West. Her hospital has always been the Queensway Carleton Hospital (QCH) as a patient, as a caregiver, as a volunteer and as a parent. QCH would become critical for Emergency Care for her and her father.

She joined PFAC in 2017, after experiencing many struggles in finding emergency care and treatment for her father, who would pass away shortly after. She brought with her a passion for improving patient and family healthcare and experiencing the very best care at QCH in her own mental health crisis.

Tia is the patient and family representative on the Emergency Department Unit Leadership Team, the Mental Health Group Leadership Team, and other strategic planning projects.

Being a part of this amazing PFAC group of diverse individuals with a multiplicity of experiences and knowledge has been an incredible journey for her. Each month these volunteers come together to improve patient care within QCH and our medical community. Thank you PFAC volunteers for all you do. Thank you to our QCH Physicians, Nurses and Allied health care teams for your empathy and commitment to our community. You are all appreciated.

Listening, engaging, and collaborating is the only way to move patients' and families' healtcare forward with accountability, innovation and respect.
As a current out-patient within the Mental Health Department, Tia is most excited for the new expansion and rebuild of the Mental Health Unit. The redevelopment includes additional inpatient beds and expanded outpatient mental health services. It is currently under construction with a tentative grand reopening in 2023.

Tia is grateful to be running a portrait photography business, working in business management, engaged in philanthropy, volunteering and spending time with her life partner and two amazing daughters in this wonderful city.

"Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect."

In memory of her beloved Father, Robert Alexander MacPherson (1948 - 2015)

Melissa Bellocchi (she/her/hers)

Vice Chair

After spending time at the Queensway Carleton Hospital (QCH) with her little sister, as she battled DeNovo Stage 4 Metestatic Breast Cancer, and observing other family members and herself utilize various hospital resources, Melissa Bellocchi observed first-hand the critical role hospitals play in our lives. From imaging, diagnostics, surgery, therapy, radiation, visits and treatments both at The Ottawa Hospital and the QCH - Irving Greenberg Cancer Centre, Melissa was motivated to join the Patient and Family Advisory Council (PFAC) to offer a patient perspective and utilize her skills to give back to her community.

After spending 25+ years in the private sector, Melissa now works in the healthcare industry and enjoys the intrinsic rewards associated with this. Melissa holds a Bachelor in Human Resources and Labour Relations as well as a mini-MBA from McGill University and is currently the Director of Human Resources at the CHEO Research Institute. She is interested in using her background in human resources, operations and finance to assist in furthering the patient experience at QCH and make meaningful contributions.

In honour of my sister, Deborah Bellocchi-Covella (1979-2022).

Tom Moss

Past Chair

Tom Moss has been associated with the Queensway Carleton Hospital (QCH) since 2008 motivated by bringing forward the patients & family views and expectations together with the community’s views and expectations to QCH’s medical and administrative leadership teams.

Currently Tom is the Co-Chair of QCH’s Patient-Family Advisory Council (PFAC) and has been a PFAC member for over 3-years. As a sitting PFAC member on a number of QCH committees, Tom focuses on having the patient-family voice heard in the planning, delivery and evaluation of health care services. Prior to being a member of PFAC, Tom sat on QCH’s Board of Directors for 9-years. Over the last 2-years, Tom has been invited to sit on several external city and provincial committees with the specific focus of bringing the patient-family views & hopes into the mix for consideration.

Nowadays Tom is a semi-retired executive with over 35 years experience in the telecommunications, software and government sectors, both in Canada and the United States. He currently sits on two corporate boards and is an active advisory member on two of the City of Ottawa’s community council committees and to two young companies.

On a personal note, Tom has been married to his wife Brenda for over 50 years and has for a number of years become her principal caregiver. They have an only son who operates an oil patch business in Alberta and formally was a professional hockey player having played both in the NHL and in Russia.

Shawn Batten

Member

Born and raised in Ottawa, Shawn is a creative enthusiast who is passionate about anything he puts his time and energy into, including his community. QCH represents a lot to him - exemplary care for patients and families, leading initiatives that positively impact the medical community, and a local organization that leads with heart. He is proud to be part of the Birthing unit as a patient rep as well as PFAC and brings a wealth of knowledge and experience based on a variety of ways his family has accessed care at the hospital; birthing unit, day surgery, ER, ICU and Ace Units. He is a dedicated Dad and is the Sailing Activities Manager at the Nepean Sailing Club and also volunteers in a variety of activities his kids enjoy including the Kanata Theatre! Shawn, his wife and their four kids raise backyard chickens and love family pizza night!

Member

Arpan Bhargav

Member

Rita Cuccia

Member

Rita lives in Ottawa’s West End and the Queensway Hospital has been her family’s “go to” hospital. Ranging from imaging appointments, to Emergency Room visits and most recently for her mom’s joint replacement and stay in Rehabilitation Unit. She is currently employed at Algonquin College as a Financial Analyst, and is also a member of Diversity and Inclusion Circle and AODA Committee. She has volunteered in various community groups and brings lived experience in being a family caregiver. Rita is looking forward to creating a positive, sustainable change at QCH.

Rebecca Hickey

Member

Rebecca is a communications strategist with a passion for making our community a better place. She is currently the Director, Communications and Marketing at Ingenium – Canada’s Museums of Science and Innovation. Prior to joining Ingenium, Rebecca held communications leadership roles at NAV CANADA and Hydro Ottawa. Her experience includes government relations, issues management, digital communications and marketing.

Since 2018, Rebecca has served on the Board of Directors at Ottawa Community Housing, the largest social housing provider in the nation's capital.

Rebecca holds a Bachelor of Journalism and Communications, and an MBA from Carleton University. Rebecca is married and has two daughters, both born at the Queensway Carleton Hospital.

Barbara LaPalme

Member

Barbara has lived in the west end for 25 years and has had a lot of experience at Queensway Carleton Hospital (QCH) as a patient and as a caregiver.

Last year, she visited senior family members daily for six months while they were hospitalized at QCH. Impressed by the caring staff, even during the second year of a very stressful pandemic, she decided to volunteer to try and give back to such an amazing hospital.

Barbara and her husband James are empty nesters. Her career background is in retail management and recently as a small business operator. As the stay-at-home parent, Barbara has 20 years of experience volunteering in the community and is very excited to be apart of a very dynamic group like PFAC.

Ann McMillan

Member

When Ann received her PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Waterloo in 1976, she had already worked for Ontario Hydro for several years, specializing in research on air pollution. In 1990 she joined the federal government as the Chief of Air Quality Modeling. The group she supervised supported the incorporation of air quality models directly into weather models. They saw the link between air quality and human health and initiated, with Health Canada, the move from the Air Quality Index (AQI) to the Air Quality Health Index (AQHI). Ann went on to work at DFO where she participated in a climate risk analysis for the department which resulted in DFO obtaining funding for a Climate Adaptation Program.

Ann had the opportunity to lead numerous external program activities from within government. As one example, from 2003 to 2011, she was the Canadian Cochair of the International Joint Commission’s International Air Quality Advisory Board (IAQAB).

Beyond the job, Ann was a member of the Waterloo Alumni Development Council and Issues Committee from 1988-94, the first woman president of the Canadian Association of Physicists from 1993-94, and Chair of the National Science Societies of Canada from 1994-96. In 2012, she became the Vice-Chair for the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographical Society (CMOS) Ottawa Chapter and after her term as Chair she has continued to be a Member-at-Large on the Executive. She is also a Director of the Prior Chest Nuts dragon boat team, a breast cancer survivor dragon boat team from Arnprior.

Now retired, Ann is pursuing a second career as a writer. She ponders words while she weeds the gardens on her rural ten acres. Some of her books include: Air Quality Management: Canadian Perspectives on a Global Issue, with Eric Taylor (co-editor) (Springer, 2014); The New Devil’s Dictionary, with Duane Chartier and Irene Agoulnik (Amazon, 2019); Naked In Time, with Duane Chartier (co-editor) (Amazon, 2020); Plague Take It, with Jon Peirce (co-editor) (Loose Cannon Press, 2021); and Tales from the Boat, (Loose Cannon Press, 2022). The last of these is an anthology of stories written by the Prior Chest Nuts.

Ann feels close to her local hospital, the Queensway Carleton, because she has been a regular customer. As a single, accident-prone Mom of two horseback-riding daughters there were visits to Emergency. Ann is a breast cancer survivor, who explored the orthopedic facilities after falling down a flight of stairs and seriously injuring her left arm. She was also the caregiver for her partner who passed away from pancreatic cancer. Volunteering with the hospital is a natural next step for her.

Donna Neil

Member

Donna became involved in the Patient and Family Advisory Council (PFAC) after her then-94-year-old Mom spent over four months in the Queensway Carleton Hospital (QCH) recovering from a fractured femur. With the help of her brother and sister, Donna was her Mom’s primary caregiver and, while the stay wasn’t without its challenges, she found that the hospital’s care team listened and welcomed her as a willing participant in her Mom’s care. The overall experience made Donna feel she wanted to help out at QCH, so she looked to PFAC given it is an opportunity to be constructively engaged in the hospital’s ongoing efforts to improve the patient experience.

Donna has always lived in Ottawa’s west end, has a business background in the banking and media sectors, and received her B.A. from Trent University. 

Maria Sabaye Moghaddam

Member

As a scientist, writer, storyteller and educator, Maria Sabaye Moghaddam has a long and varied history of community engagement. As a volunteer, she has served in various capacities at many organizations such as Let's Talk Science, Ontario Science Fair, Tirgan Festival, PEN Canada, on Advisory Board for Art, Culture, and Recreation of the City of Ottawa and has taught dance to seniors and persons with developmental and physical disabilities. Maria is the recipient of the Ontario Volunteer Award for her contributions to arts and culture.

Living in the West end, Maria and her family have sought care at the Queensway-Carleton Hospital for years. As a volunteer translator, she is aware of extra challenges in communication posed by language barrier in health care. As a member of the Patient and Family Advisory Council, Maria hopes to utilize her experience, skills, and connections with diverse communities to contribute to enhancement and improvement of health care delivery for patients and their families.

Sabrina Shaheen

Member

Ava Grace Sliwa

Member

Ava Grace is incredibly grateful for the privilege of becoming a member of the Queensway Carleton’s Patient and Family Advisory Committee (PFAC). With this opportunity, she brings a wealth of insight and empathy for individuals navigating the transition from adolescent to adult healthcare services. She understands the need for self-advocacy when seeking mental healthcare, and the importance of continuing to ask for help when encountering hurdles in your health journey.

At 17 she was admitted to QCH’s inpatient mental health unit, where for the next couple of years she intermittently spent several months in the hands of her care team. She is confident that she would not be here today without the support of QCH’s team of nurses, doctors, patient support workers, and occupational therapists.

Ava Grace is excited for this opportunity to guide the positive development of hospital policy and educational initiatives for hospital staff. Her experience allows her to continually input a perspective which prioritizes personal connections as part of public health resources. To create meaningful connections with current patients and their families, Ava Grace always looks forward to her weekly volunteer shift at the QCH Gift Shop! She is also currently advising a research study with the University of Calgary that is investigating the intersection of pharmacogenomics and youth psychiatric care. In her spare time, she enjoys watercolour and acrylic painting; a passion she re-discovered during her time as an inpatient.

After taking a pause from high school in 2021, Ava Grace recently graduated from secondary school as a recipient of the Governor General’s Academic Medal. She is now continuing her education at The University of Ottawa, pursuing an Honours BSc. in Biomedical Science. As she begins this next chapter, she is eager to contribute to the ongoing development of Ottawa’s healthcare as a part of the QCH PFAC.

Elizabeth Venditti

Member

Elizabeth Venditti was inspired to join the Queensway Carleton Hospital (QCH) Patient and Family Advisory Council (PFAC) through her role and experiences as caregiver to her father. QCH was an important part of her father’s life.

In July 2020, QCH provided emergency care in diagnosing her father with multiple pulmonary embolisms and possible cancer. QCH quickly referred him to the thrombosis and oncology clinics at The Ottawa Hospital – General Campus. Her Dad’s diagnostic imaging and other tests were carried out at QCH. When her Dad needed radiation treatment, in 2021, he also went to the Irving Greenberg Cancer Centre. In previous years, her Dad was also a surgical day unit patient and an inpatient.

Elizabeth has always been fascinated with medicine, health and health care. She uses her experiences, as a caregiver, to help enhance patient and family care at QCH. Having been born and living in the National Capital Region her entire life, Elizabeth is keen to apply her skills, knowledge and network to a leadership role in the local community.

Elizabeth holds a Graduate Diploma in Public Policy and Program Evaluation (Carleton University); Master of Public Health, Specialization in Indigenous and Northern Health (Lakehead University) as well as an Honours Bachelor of Social Sciences, Specialization in Sociology (University of Ottawa).

In honour of my father, Vincenzo Venditti (1951-2021).