A new health and wellness service has been established for residents on Gabriola Island and the RDN says it will help address the needs of many residents and mitigate future challenges.
According to the district, the need for service was identified after extensive research was done showing Gabriola residents are more likely to experience poverty and ill health compared to residents of Nanaimo or BC.
The district says the reason poverty levels could be high is because of the inability to get some essential services to the island.
“There is a complicated layering of service delivery on Gabriola Island by multiple agencies without formal coordination between organizations,” the RDN says in a media release. “This makes it challenging for organizations to collaborate and ensure resident’s needs are met.”
Chair Vanessa Craig says providing new health and wellness services on Gabriola will benefit the community especially for those who rely on these services, but don’t have access to care.
“We heard from many organizations on Gabriola that work to provide health and wellbeing services, many of which rely on volunteer boards or extensive volunteer participation, that they would like assistance in organizing and coordinating programs to benefit the community,” Craig says. “I look forward to the development and impact of this new service in our community.”
A coordinator position will be slated to help provide administrative services between organizations and the RDN says this will be a part-time position with the hopes of making it permanent after a year of evaluation.
People for a Healthy Community will work in collaboration with Gabriola Island Health, and Wellbeing Collaborative to form representatives of organizations that support the health and wellbeing of Gabriola residents.
