The Centre for Rural Health Research, part of UBC’s Department of Family Practice, has an ongoing study to understand rural and remote community priorities for health care across British Columbia, and community members from Tumbler Ridge are invited to participate.
The Rural Evidence Review (RER), led by Dr. Jude Kornelsen, is working with rural citizens to provide high-quality and useful evidence for rural health care planning in BC.
To do this, they are asking rural citizens about the health care priorities that matter the most to their communities and share what we learn with policy- and decision-makers, and rural communities across BC.
So far, they have heard from about 1500 people across BC about their health care needs and priorities
The program is funded under Canada’s Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research and through the Rural Coordination Centre of BC.
So far, the lion’s share of commentators have been female (1160, compared to 293 male and 21 who preferred not to say).
One of the key results so far include the difficulty for rural patients to travel for care. Many rural communities are lacking health services, and traveling presents both a hardship in terms of time, difficulty and financial.
Other results coming from the survey include:
- Communities are growing, and need services to grow as well.
- Mountainous terrain and dangerous weather make travelling to other communities for care difficult.
- Island communities are dependant on ferry services to access care.
- Some communities feel they are the source of health care services for too many neighbouring communities
- Many respondents do not have family physicians and end up relying on emergency services for nonemergency issues. The high turn-over rate of rural physicians leads to a lack of continuity of care.
- A lack of local home care or long-term care facilities forces seniors to leave their home community in the final stages of their lives, placing them far from family and friends.
The financial cost of travelling for health care has spawned a follow-up survey, which needs to be completed by January 31. You can find it here.
Or, you can fill in the main survey.
