The man who fought to keep Ontario's only Francophone hospital open is retiring.
After 23 years, Gerald Savoie is stepping down as president of the Montfort Hospital.
"The greatest challenge was really around the time of the closure in terms of keeping it all together," Savoie told reporters on Friday.
"But what we understood is we had to keep the hospital together."
Savoie spearheaded the SOS Montfort campaign to save the hospital in 1997 after the provincial government under Premier Mike Harris announced its closure.
The hospital remained open and doubled in size. Signs of expansion remain all over the hospital, from a larger emergency room to the National Defence Medical Centre.
"We have a hospital that is well-anchored and supported in its community, and has wind at its back," said Ottawa-Vanier MP Mauril B�langer.
Savoie is expected to leave the hospital in October.
With a report from CTV Ottawa's Joanne Schnurr
