‘If you deny that the need is there, then you’ll never build the services and you’ll never see it.’ The phrase, “Build it and they will come” is usually reserved for business and baseball fields. But Olivander Day, a harm reduction worker in Langford uses it differently. Day coordinates the Westshore AVI Health Centre, a […]
Health
Updates to Victoria emergency psychiatric care are insufficient, say teen advocates
After taking on the province in a public battle last spring, Ella Hale and Emma Epp feel brushed off by the system that promised change Psychiatric Emergency Services at the Royal Jubilee Hospital released an update last week on their efforts to improve care for people in a mental health crisis. But the two teens […]
‘Please tell someone:’ Langford woman whose mother was murdered begs abuse survivors to get help
‘I didn’t believe this could happen to my mom either, but it did’ Warning: This article contains content some readers will find triggering When Jacquie Bartlett heard her mother’s hushed whisper on the phone, she knew something was wrong. Her normally vivacious mother started calling only when her husband was out of the house they […]
First Nations’ vaccination clinics a big success
Between the three clinics, over 600 people were vaccinated in early March ZOE DUCKLOW, LOCAL JOURNALISM INITIATIVE REPORTER Mar. 10, 2021 5:30 a.m. Nurse Alexa Bisaillon waits with needle prepped for her next immunization patient at Wakas Community Hall on the Tsulquate Reserve. (Zoë Ducklow photo) Vaccines arrived on the North Island after a long […]
COVID-19: Vancouver Island in a January spike while B.C. cases decrease
Island’s top doc Dr. Stanwick breaks down the Island’s rising numbers ZOE DUCKLOW, LOCAL JOURNALISM INITIATIVE REPORTER Jan. 26, 2021, 4:00 p.m. Published in Vancouver Island Free Daily. Dr. Bonnie Henry is calling it a precipice, a plateau from which the novel coronavirus could spring upwards, or decline. New cases in B.C. have hovered around […]
Backwards tray results in 12 misinformed COVID-19 testees
Six negative and six positive results were linked to the wrong names on the North Island ZOE DUCKLOW, LOCAL JOURNALISM INITIATIVE REPORTER Dec. 11, 2020 5:30 a.m. Amid a flurry of tests and publicized COVID-19 cases, 12 test results on the North Island were mixed up, causing six people to mistakenly be told they were […]
How a Team of Women Helped Make BC a World Leader in Treating Postpartum Depression
Forty years ago, one doctor noticed new moms weren’t getting help they needed. It led to a revolution in care. Shaila Misri was finishing her residency at Vancouver General Hospital in 1978, working long hours in the obstetrics ward, when she noticed something troubling. The women who came into the ward with physical problems were […]
New York Times’ Daily 360 video: Spelunking for Antibiotics
It can take decades of research and more than billions of dollars to create a new antibiotic drug. Sometimes, the first step of the process starts underground, deep inside a mountain. I filmed this video with Emily McCarty, and Tim Chaffee and Nathan Griffiths did the editing.
Indigenous doula collective to support mother-centred birth care in B.C.
‘For Indigenous people, birth is supposed to be a ceremony,’ says doula from Squamish Nation A woman from the Squamish Nation is leading a resurgence of mother-centred birth care in B.C. by helping start a new Indigenous doula collective which aims to support women in the powerful experience of giving birth. “For Indigenous people, birth […]