Dear supporters,
I hope you are enjoying your summer and I hope you have been able to stay cool, well and healthy. I wanted to pass on some opportunities and provide an update on the rural healthcare crisis that is worsening across BC!
Let’s start with some positive news and information.
Website development: Over the course of the summer participation and inclusion of resources from others has increased and our website hosts great resources for all BC residents. If you haven’t been to our Resources section lately I would encourage you to come visit! The United Way has been most helpful in providing links to content in several areas of site and content continues to be sought from others. If you or a group you are familiar with has resource information that you believe is helpful the health and wellness of residents, please send me an email paul.adams@bcruralhealth.org. The goal is to continually grow content links and network with the content providers. The goal is to have a central resource of information for rural residents and the general public, and it is!
Research opportunities: The Health Research and Volunteer Opportunities section has also been expanding and now links to REACH BC, the Rural Research Centre of BC at UBC and Rural Health Equity team at UBCO. Lots of great resources, opportunities, and requests for rural participation in research can be found there.
Two immediate research opportunities require rural input and especially from our male audience, male participation in all research on rural health is underrepresented compared to female participation and we need more data from our men (we also need continued data from our women, thank you)!
If you have had surgery in the past 12 months and live rurally please click here to participate in this important survey from the Rural Research Centre at UBC.
If you are 19+ years old and live in a BC rural community please click here to participate in a survey from the Rural Health Equity team at UBCO on preventative care behaviours.
The Federal Government is also seeking participation in a survey on Ageism and if you are 55+ and live anywhere in Canada, please click here to participate.
Learning opportunities and webinars:
Our friends at UVic continue to update their Self-Management workshops and some great opportunities are available for the fall in the Interior. You can access the latest here.
Stigma Free has a variety of great tools for mental health and wellness including their Rural Mental Wellness Toolkit and with school return right around the corner check out their Student Mental Health Toolkit and you can find all these links here.
Stigma Free also needs your help, they are looking to hire and are looking for volunteer presenters. I would encourage you to reach out and sign-up for their Newsletter to learn more and stay up to date. We have several Newsletters that are available to sign up for in our Newsletter section, click here.
Celebrating seniors in Nelson!
If you haven’t already (spaces are filling up fast!) please sign-up for the Kootenay Seniors Fair being put on by the awesome team at Nelson Cares Society! This event is being held in Nelson on Oct 28; they also need volunteers! Click here to learn more and register.
Celebrating our volunteers!
The BC Rural Health Network was built by and grows due to volunteers! Volunteers are rare creatures these days and we need to celebrate all who provide incredible volunteer work in their communities. Volunteering for the benefit of others without any compensation other than the knowledge you helped someone else and the additional knowledge you gained along the way is something we need more of!
Thank you to all the volunteers everywhere you make the world a better place! One group of volunteers has stood out for me recently, The Bluebirds of New Denver, in fact, they have a new home on the website, we have created a “nesting box” for them! These amazing folks work together at their local long-term care facility and provide a much-needed break from regular routines for both the residents and the staff. Thank you Bluebirds, you are awesome!
I suspect there are many other groups out there doing work in rural BC that we should be celebrating! Please let me know about any activities that we can help bring attention and gratitude to! Drop me an email at paul.adams@bcruralhealth.org and we will shine a light on your community volunteers! We really want to showcase community heroes like the Bluebirds and bring recognition to those who often go by unnoticed but provide so much to so many!
Implementation Committee Developments
For those who know the rural health landscape, also know the name Dr. Jude Kornelsen. Jude is a Liaison Director to the BCRHN from the Rural Research Centre at UBC and had volunteered to chair our new Implementation Committee.
This Committee has already attracted broad support and participation and we are opening the opportunity to engage with groups, governments and individuals who have knowledge and vested interest in rural wellness. Jude has provided the following description and is currently drafting terms of reference and additional materials for a meeting in the next month or so.
This committee has met twice since it’s creation just last month and is now expanding to allow for third party involvement. Please read the following and if interested please contact me directly at my paul.adams@bcruralhealth.org address.
“During the past decade, there has been increasing interest in the status and sustainability of rural health services in British Columbia and other jurisdictions across Canada. Some of this interest has been precipitated by service reductions and closures and the consequent effect on patient health outcomes and social cohesion in rural communities. Other interest has come from a growing awareness of the ripple effect through the health care system due to the closure of rural services.
Alongside this growing attention has been an emerging national and international evidence-base to support system policies and interventions to quell the attrition of services. In British Columbia, this evidence exists alongside a policy context supportive of rural health care, stretching back to the 1991 Royal Commission on Health Care and Costs (commonly known as the ‘Closer to Home’ report) to, more recently, the directional policy paper ‘Rural Health Service in BC: A Policy framework to Provide a System of Quality Care’ (2015). The evidence and policy context, however, has not led to sustainable rural health services: instead we see regional centralization, attrition of local services and the need for many rural citizens to travel to access health care.
BCRHN’s Implementation Committee will bring together rural community members, local leaders, administrators, policy and decision makers to formulate and enact strategies for the implementation of evidence into rural policy and planning at a local, regional and provincial level. We will privilege an expanded view of evidence to include individual lived experiences and community-level knowledge alongside scientific and organizational knowledge. We will determine audiences that can affect evidence-based changes and map out the mechanisms for such changes. The committee is open to anyone who is connected to decision-makers in and outside of government and would like to participate in strategic discussions to support rural health services.” Dr. Jude Kornelsen.
The Rural Healthcare Crisis!
I don’t like to end on bad news and I don’t like to start with it either, I wish there was nothing but success, progress, and wellness to celebrate (perhaps one day)!
Unfortunately, the healthcare situation in rural BC has become a crisis! The lack of emergency care facilities and lack of available ambulances are killing people! The two recent deaths in Ashcroft and the many similar events (throughout BC) come to my attention daily.
We cannot say for certain that people wouldn’t have died with proper care, but we can say for certain that their chances of survival and improved health would have certainly increased from zero if adequate care provision was available. We also realize that all residents, rural and urban have been affected. It is the uniqueness of rural BC that requires unique solutions and rural perspectives, there are many urban groups championing urban residents’ health and we support them, there are also many urban groups trying to champion some rural causes and they do not reach their intended audience and fail to provide rural solutions to rural problems. We need support!
The BC Rural Health Network seeks solutions, and our membership has many suggestions on improving rural health. Most rural residents believe that our voices are not heard even when we are told that we are listened to. Our voice is growing and our ability to reach people also grows. As a CRA registered charity we do not act politically and we are resolute to remain a proactive and solutions based. We are an apolitical group, of like-minded, resident focused, and community centric people. We focus on communication and education that is bi-directional between authorities and residents.
Our members do represent the diversity of our communities and the diversity of rural life generally. As the saying goes, once you have visited one rural town you have visited one rural town! We are all unique as are our communities. Our voice unites around common causes and issues that underlie the lack of care and care provision rural residents are subjected to and how the impacts compound for residents once you add distance and low-density populations. We are science based, grassroots and communicate upwards through our members, through community outreach and through public engagement.
We believe our voice needs support from our governments and we need to be given more resources to reach more rural residents. We are actively engaged at all levels in the health field, we enjoy the liaison representation of doctors, researchers, Community Health Centres, and advocacy groups. We have routine meetings with the leadership of health authorities, communities, healthcare workers (of all kinds), other NGOs and we request solutions-based meetings with political leaders of all stripes. If you are receiving this email, it is because the BC Rural Health Network has reached you previously and we need your support in our requests for and our engagements with governments.
We are the solutions-based voice on rural health which is both meaningful and effective in connecting with rural residents and we need resources. We are the only society working specifically on health and wellness for rural residents across BC. We need more inclusion; we need more investment, and we need to be heard! The pandemic has highlighted the rural-urban divide, the need to work within communities to supply solid science from trusted community members to their neighbours, this is sorely needed and requires investment.
We have made some significant in roads of late. The BC Emergency Health Services and the Chief Ambulance Officer are now scheduled to meet with our Board on a quarterly basis for bi-directional updates. We have a similar situation with the senior management of the Interior Health Authority (and seek similar engagements with all health authorities.)
We are given access to the lead of communications in the Ministry of Health, and we enjoy interaction with many political and bureaucratic entities on both sides of the aisle in the BC legislature. Over the course of the next month, we will be engaging with the leader of the BC Green Party, the BC Liberal health critic and we hope to meet with the Minister of Health. We will have representatives present at the Union of BC Municipalities and many meetings with mayors and leaders are being scheduled there. We have met with and will continue to engage with the Seniors Advocate of BC as they become more engaged on rural issues this fall.
To all these engagements we bring solutions and not empty complaints. At all these meetings we stand for rural residents’ health across the province.
We need support in more ways than just money (although we certainly need that!) We need your support to our requests through making more people aware of what we do and who we are. We need you to be our champions and we want to continue to champion rural healthcare interests and to do so more effectively.
Our voice grows with our membership and more communities are including themselves in our fold. If you live in a rural community in BC we ask you to champion the BC Rural Health Network to your municipal leaders, Regional Districts, Chamber of Commerce, MLAs and in any engagements pertaining to BC health and wellness. Following us on social media and signing up for our newsletter also helps us reach more people and expand the Network. The problems are not new, the situation is dire for all regarding the healthcare system, the hardships compound for rural residents and action is needed!
Some recent highlights on the crisis and our engagements below:
Letter to Adrian Dix (similar letters sent across political parties and to other divisions with the BC Government)
Submission to the Standing Committee on Finance
Newspaper article (one of many)
Please help grow the Network, increase our voice and join us! The health of rural BC impacts all British Columbians and their health, we seek support from all who care about public healthcare and improving it! Join here.
Thank you for your time and enjoy your day, we truly do live in an amazingly beautiful place!
Yours in health and wellness,
Paul
