Women’s mobile primary care program launched in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside – BC | 24CA News
The Vancouver Aboriginal Health Society (VAHS), together with the First Nations Aboriginal Primary Care Network, launched a girls’s cell major care program within the Downtown Eastside (DTES) on Wednesday.
“We are happy to have this up and running, this van is really important to us,” stated Rosemary Stager-Wallace, VAHS government director, at a press convention.
“It is going to bring primary care to the Downtown Eastside to some of our most vulnerable women.”
Stager-Wallace stated this system will present wraparound low-barrier entry care with information keepers, elders and healers together with medical doctors, nurses and social employees.
“Its an extension of (our) services,” she stated, “and one that we have no doubt will save lives.”
The Homeless Women’s Needs Assessment discovered that 77 per cent of the ladies surveyed stated well being care and psychological well being care entry had been pressing and first wants.
The van will supply a broad vary of companies from basic checkups to women-specific companies like pap smears, IUD insertion and removing, sexual well being testing and contraception.
Jasheil Athalia, supervisor for the ladies’s cell major care program, informed Global News in an interview that this system will assist mitigate quite a few obstacles self-identifying girls locally face.
“We’re hoping to really provide long-term, sustainable, continued care for women and we know that right now there’s limited options especially for street-entrenched women,” she stated.
“Primary care is hopefully going to fill some of those gaps and with cultural supports and cultural services we’re hoping — especially for Indigenous women — they’re going to get that holistic full circle care that they need.”
Athalia stated wraparound, constant care is necessary due to the added gaps girls within the DTES face.
“A lot of self-identifying women in this community have experienced trauma, sexual violence and so having a care team that consists of women is going to provide that safety, help build that trust,” she stated.
“It’s great that we’re starting to fund these initiatives … we just want to get people’s needs met.”
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The van is a community-driven program that may start working three days per week. It will probably be parked on the Cosmopolitan Hotel, Ravens Lodge and the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre.
It is supposed to be simple to entry and there are not any appointments vital.
“This work that’s been put forward has been a long time coming, it will help bring us forward in a really good way,” stated Andrea Aleck a spokesperson for the First Nations Aboriginal Primary Care Network.
“We need to really understand the importance of meeting women where they’re at … our end goal is to be able to provide services and care so our matriarchs can take that journey to come back to our communities and our homes.”
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