Press release -- April 29, 2009
Gabriola Island, B.C. - The Gabriola Health Care Society (“GHCS”) welcomes everyone in the Gabriola community to an Open House on Saturday, May 16 between 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. at the Women's Institute Hall.
The Gabriola Health Care Society was created in November 2006 as a community response to a need for improved emergency and after hours care to an increased population. By July 2007 enough funds were raised to develop and complete an interim facility, which included an equipped emergency treatment room. A new physician, Dr. Francois Bosman, commenced practice.
The emergency treatment room was a necessary condition to obtaining critical clot busting drugs and on-call funding. As a result of many meetings with Ministry of Health and Vancouver Island Health Authority, the emergency treatment room is now supplied with clot busting drugs. In 2008, Gabriola physicians began to receive on-call compensation under the Medical On-Call Availability Program (MOCAP).
In addition, through the continued efforts of dedicated volunteers and a series of critical meetings with the Minister of Health and senior Vancouver Island Health Authority representatives, Gabriola Island was awarded a Family Physicians for B.C. (FPs4BC) allocation with the result that a new physician will commence practice here this summer.
A key objective of the Gabriola Health Care Society is to create and facilitate continuous, comprehensive, and coordinated health care on Gabriola Island. High quality, timely and relevant data is fundamental to the delivery of modern health services. Through the efforts of the Society, Gabriola has been selected as one of five community participants in a pilot project designed to support fact based patient centred health care planning.
The next stage of long term health care planning for Gabriola includes a proposal, for consideration by the community, for a new community owned facility. In addition to a complete update of all the developmental milestones, an architectural rendering along with a floor plan, developed with the generous donation of the time and expertise of Margot Kemble of Architrave Design, will be presented.
For more information please contact: Fay Weller (250) 247-8120 or Lawrence Spero (250) 247-0261
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