The Lifesaving Benefits of Community Medicine

Ep 236

Guest: Nancy Kotani  

Headline:  Community Paramedicine

 

Life on the frontier in British Columbia is fantastic so long as you’re healthy. Get injured or worse suffer from a chronic condition and up until now, health care was usually a sirens-blaring ambulance trip to a hospital more than 100 kilometers away.

 

It was a problem – a big problem – for many reasons. Then one day, a solution emerged: members of the Ambulance and Paramedics Union came up with a way of creating sustainable employment of ambulance paramedics in remote communities and at the same time dramatically improve the well-being of the people they served.

 

The community paramedicine program came to life and now provides high-level care for elderly patients in 99 remote and rural communities throughout the province. The benefits include but are not limited to: aging in place for seniors; families remain united; health outcomes are improving; and paramedics are now assured a stable job.

 

This is a made-in-BC solution to a BC health care challenge – a remarkable success story.

 

We invited Nancy Kotani of the Chief Transformation Office of BC’s Emergency Health Services to join us for a Conversation That Matters about the remarkable success story that is improving lives in remote and rural communities in BC.  

 

Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Dialogue presents Conversations That Matter. Join veteran Broadcaster Stuart McNish each week for an important and engaging Conversation about the issues shaping our future.

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