At each of the dialogues, participants shared stories of the challenges they face in caring for vulnerable populations. But at the same time, their stories illustrate the incredible courage, determination and resourcefulness of the frontline health workers who dedicate themselves to finding innovative solutions to the challenges at hand.
Here is just a sample of the inspiring stories that were told around the tables of the Frontline Health Dialogues. To learn more, read the full reports from the Vancouver
Homeless and street-involved populations
LGBT populations
Patient empowerment in healthcare
Educating the next generation of frontline practitioners
Community engagement
Innovative Approaches to Healthcare Challenges
Homeless and street-involved populations
Coming Soon: eLearning Modules on Homelessness and Healthcare in Canada
These modules will examine who the homeless are in Canada, how they’ve become homeless, the risky behaviours in which they engage, the diseases that run through their communities, the challenges and obstacles they face every day, and treatment options designed with the unique requirements of homeless people in mind.
Learn more about the eLearning Modules
Healthcare on Vancouver’s downtown eastside
An inner-city primary care physician on Vancouver’s downtown eastside finds innovative ways to provide support and care to populations having difficulty accessing healthcare services.
Dr. Trevor Corneil, Medical Director – Primary Health Care Urban Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, Three Bridges Clinic – Vancouver, B.C.
Learn more about Dr. Trevor Corneil
A clinic for Vancouver’s street youth
A clinic catering to street youth that was born out of frustration with the quality of health services available to young people in the community.
Dr. Todd Sakakibara, Three Bridges Clinic – Vancouver, B.C.
Soccer, healthcare and the homeless
A soccer team comprised of homeless men is part of a program that uses sport and wellness to change homeless men’s outlook on life and helps them take control of their well-being.
Rhonda Alvarez, Program Coordinator, Healing Spirit Lodge – Vancouver, B.C.
A mobile healthcare solution for the street-involved in Halifax
Community organizations join forces to develop a mobile outreach program to deliver primary healthcare to street-involved populations in Halifax and Dartmouth.
Patti Melanson, North End Community Health Centre, NS
Larry Baxter, Chair, Nova Scotia Advisory Committee on AIDS – Halifax, NS
Learn more about Mobile Outreach Street Health
Street reach: reaching out on the streets of St. John’s
A group of community organizations collaborate to secure funding for a Street Reach program, where frontline workers are sent out to provide healthcare services for the homeless in St. John’s, Newfoundland from out of the back of a truck.
Tree Walsh, Coordinator, Safe Works Access Program – St. John’s, NL
The Red Door: a health clinic for adolescents in Nova Scotia
An adolescent health clinic that flourishes on the passion of a few committed nurses, who despite having regular full-time jobs, dedicate time every week to work for an organization they believe in.
Alyson Lamb, part-time nurse at the Red Door Clinic – Halifax, NS
Learn more about The Red Door
INSITE: Vancouver’s safe injection site
A safe injection site is established to curb overdose deaths and offer opportunities for injection drug users to approach nurses with an aim to improve their own health.
Mr. Mark Townsend, Executive Director, Portland Hotel Society; Manager, Insite – Vancouver, B.C.
Learn more about Insite
LGBT populations
CPATH: care for transgendered populations
A cross-country network of Canadian healthcare providers for transgender populations grows to 100 members within one year of its inception, showcasing the appetite for building communities of practice among frontline health workers all across the country.
Dr. Gail Knudson, Medical Director, Vancouver Coastal Health’s Transgender Health program – Vancouver, B.C. President, Canadian Professional Associate for Transgender Health (CPATH)
Learn more about CPATH
The CPATH Frontline Health Forums
Members of CPATH, individuals working to provide healthcare services to transgendered populations across Canada, have the opportunity to connect virtually on the CPATH Frontline Health Forums.
Learn more about the CPATH Forums
Coming soon: eLearning Module on endocrine therapy for transgender patients
This module will describe the prescribing and monitoring of hormone therapy for adolescent and adult transgender patients in both pre-operative and post-operative phases of transition.
Learn more about endocrine therapy
Patient empowerment in healthcare
Peer-to-peer health promotion in women’s prison
An outreach program empowers residents of a women’s prison to educate their peers on various health issues they had researched themselves, leading to a marked change in attitudes among inmates, reduced behavioural difficulties and improved relations between staff and inmates.
Terry Howard, Coordinator of the Prison Outreach Program for the B.C. Persons with AIDS Society – Vancouver, B.C.
Learn more about the B.C. Persons with AIDS Society
Stroke survivors’ peer outreach
A mentor network of stroke survivors reach out in communities across B.C. to help stroke victims through their recovery, minimizing the sense of isolation that is commonly reported by patients after a stroke.
Linda Lane Devlin, Executive Director of the Stroke Recovery Association – Vancouver, B.C.
Learn more about the Stroke Recovery Association of B.C.
Empowering incarcerated youth
A program for youth in detention centres demonstrated the power of engagement, by putting into action suggestions from the youth around how to change and improve the system that cares for them.
Elizabeth Saewyc, UBC School of Nursing – Vancouver, B.C.
Educating the next generation of frontline practitioners
Training physicians for rural practice in B.C.
An innovative distributed medical education program trains physicians in the communities and with the populations they will work with after graduation – in northern and rural practice, on Vancouver Island, in the Fraser Valley, in the B.C. interior and in Vancouver.
Dr. Joanna Bates, Senior Associate Dean, Education, UBC Faculty of Medicine – Vancouver, B.C.
Learn more about UBC’s distributed medical education program
Preparing students to work on Vancouver’s healthcare frontlines
An inter-professional, student-run clinic puts student volunteers to work from across healthcare disciplines that include medicine, nursing, social work and pharmacy, among others, within a frontline community in Vancouver’s downtown east side.
Andrew Thamboo, Co-chair, Community Health Initiative by University Students (CHIUS) – Vancouver, B.C.
Learn more from CHIUS’ Dr. Andrew Morgan
Learn more from CHIUS’ Dr. Peter Granger
Recruiting future nurses in their teenage years
A high-school and summer camp program encourages African Canadian students to think about careers in nursing, leading to an increase of 200% in the numbers of African Canadians enrolled in Dalhousie’s nursing program.
Dr. Josephine Etowa, Dalhousie School of Nursing – Halifax, NS
Training social workers in remote First Nations’ communities in Labrador
A social work program recruits and trains people to live and provide counseling services in the remote, northern Inuit communities of Labrador.
Zita White, Program Coordinator, Labrador Bachelor of Social Work Program – Goose Bay, Labrador, NL
Memorial’s Family Medicine program helps to lower the infant mortality rate in rural Labrador
The Northern Family Medicine program in Goose Bay, Labrador prepares doctors to practice medicine in rural and remote Labrador by immersing them in the cultures and reality of the communities who live there. The program has helped lower the infant mortality rate from 16.1 per thousand to 4.5 per thousand, lower than the Canadian national average.
Dr. Michael Jong, Associate Professor, NorFam, Memorial University – Happy Valley, Labrador, NL
Learn more about The Northern Family Medicine Program
Community engagement
Community-owned health clinic
Residents of a small rural town experiencing a shortage of local healthcare services come together to actively recruit a nurse practitioner for their community and end up establishing a health centre that is entirely community-owned.
Renate Bennett, RN, North Queen’s Medical Centre – Caledonia, NS
Learn more about the North Queen’s Medical Centre
Engaging stakeholders in AIDS and HIV policy in Nova Scotia
A government-owned strategy on AIDS initially turned down by the community became a valuable and respected provincial strategy through a process of sincere stakeholder consultation and engagement.
Larry Baxter, Chair of the Nova Scotia Advisory Committee on AIDS – Halifax, NS
Stakeholders unite to spur action on poverty in New Brunswick
A coalition of businesses, non-profit and local government builds community awareness and drives action on poverty and other issues in Saint John, New Brunswick.
Brenda Murphy, Coordinator, Urban Core Support Network – Saint John, NB
Innovative approaches to healthcare challenges
Managing health collectively
A community triage approach to healthcare where frontline service providers such as outreach workers, local shelter workers and healthcare practitioners meet weekly to discuss and manage individual cases collectively.
Andrew Hughes, Primary Healthcare Lead for the Central Okanagan – Kelowna, B.C.
Prescription vending machine
A remote “telepharmy” dispensing machine, which dispenses prescription medications to patients onsite at the health clinic, before they walk out with a prescription they cannot or will not fill.
Andrew Hughes, Primary Healthcare Lead for the Central Okanagan – Kelowna, B.C.
Caring for seniors, changing attitudes
A campaign to attract and recruit more people to work in the area of geriatrics in PEI, by changing negative attitudes about senior citizens and aging.
Pat Malone, Seniors Peer Helping – Charlottetown, PEI
Using cross country networks to share health information
A nation-wide network of AIDS advocates share information, such as the interfering effect that certain HIV and Hep C medications have on routine prison drug tests, which can change the circumstances of dozens of inmates across the country.
Terry Howard, B.C. Persons with AIDS Society – Vancouver, B.C.