Coming This Week: Please join us this Friday, December 5, 11-1, in the SIMS classroom to welcome our Mental Wellness Initiative Team, including David Norget and Will MacPherson. Addressing the mental health needs of Salt Springers since 2021, this amazing group of volunteers and professionals, many of them with lived experience, are excited to announce the launch of its newest program, Reach Out Salt Spring (https://www.reachoutsaltspring.com),making mental health support available to all by the donation of 10 free sessions by our mental health professionals. 

Please join us to learn more about this program as well as the many other programs of the Mental Health Initiative.   

Hope to see you there!

Fourteen came to this ASK Salt Spring gathering to welcome our local healthcare experts, Erin Price-Lindstrom, Eric Jacobson, Sarah Bulmer, and Dr. Pete Verheul. While it was a bit surprising that more Salt Springers were not there to contribute to this important conversation, those who participated got an enormous amount of great information as well as plenty of time to ask their many questions. 

Before these questions began and after our Acknowledgement highlighting an enhanced cultural sensitivity as a driving force in our health care services, we each had an opportunity to introduce ourselves. It was soon obvious that the room was filled with community leaders, each with a richness of experience and wisdom to share. 

When asked what “excited and delighted” our guests, that day’s bright sun got enthusiastic acknowledgment as well as that joy of seeing an amazing world through the eyes of children, expressed by young fathers Eric and Pete. 

But, beyond these personal joys, all four of our guests expressed excitement about some great strides addressing our need for primary care in our community. Erin, Rural Site Director of Lady Minto Hospital & Southern Gulf Islands, spoke briefly of her role with primary care on Salt Spring and the Southern Gulf Islands and her delight with the collaborative work she, Lady Minto Foundation, newly-formed Island Community Clinic Society, and the Primary Care Network initiative are doing to improve primary care on Salt Spring.

Eric, Executive Director of the Lady Minto Foundation, continued this theme of great hope, telling us of his pleasure when he can tell members of our community that there is, for the first time in a long time, hope that all Salt Springers wanting a doctor will be attached to one. He spoke of his delight when he saw that glimmer of hope in the eyes of others, many of whom have not had a primary care physician for far too long. 

Sarah, Salt Spring Island Program Lead for the Primary Care Network, spoke with joy about her hope that everyone who needs a doctor will have one. She loved discussing the Health Connect Registry at the Tuesday Market, hearing people’s concerns and letting them know that real health-care improvements may just be around the bend.

Pete, primary care physician, Lady Minto Hospital doctor,Medical Staff President, and Board Member of Island Community Clinic Society quite amazingly, was able to join us for the entire time: He was buddying with our newest doctor to the community, Dr Alexis Carr, this week and had taken the opportunity to let this doctor cover his Lady Minto Hospital inpatient shift while he stepped away. Peter wears many hats, including his key roles as a primary care physician at the Salt Spring Island Health Centre and ER/hospital physician at Lady Minto Hospital. A father of three young children, one would think that was more than enough, but he has also recently taken a lead role in creating a Primary Care Network through the South Island Division of Family Practice, alongside creating the newly-formed charity, Island Community Clinic Society (ICCS) with local physicians Dr Christopher Applewhaite, Dr Manya Sadouski, and other community members.

We then were given a quick glimpse of the immense complexity of the proposed change in our local healthcare system requiring intense and ongoing collaboration between a wide variety of groups, including those represented in our gathering: Lady Minto Hospital and Foundation, Island Community Clinic Society, and the Primary Care Network. 

So much work has already been done! Through the great work of this team, ongoing funding for the equivalent of 11 healthcare positions has been secured through the Primary Care Network. The next challenge is confirming that the location of the present Salt Spring Island Health Center can be expanded for the Community Health Centre to house these healthcare professionals, an initiative which has made much progress and is quickly gaining momentum.

Interested in more detail? You may want to check out these links as a part of your journey: 

Lady Minto Hospital – (https://www.islandhealth.ca/care-locations/hospitals-health-centre-locations/lady-minto-gulf-islands-hospital).

Lady Minto Hospital Foundation: https://ladymintofoundation.com/news/community-health-centre/,

Island Community Clinic Society – https://islandcommunityclinicsociety.com/, and 

Primary Care Network, Salt Spring – https://saltspringexchange.com/2025/08/07/salt-spring-island-primary-care-network/.

While addressing the complexity of this initiative to significantly improve our primary care is important, we were also struck by the simplicity of it: Many young doctors seeking their forever home do not like the traditional model of working in isolation in an office by themselves. They do not want to be responsible for their facility, equipment, staff, insurance, and, the list goes on. . . .They became physicians to care for people not become a business manager. They had also spent their training years working in a team. Working in isolation simply does not appeal to many of our young doctors. 

Instead, they seek a team-based clinic model where there are other physicians as well as the full range of health care providers working together. Pete told us that currently too much of his patient time is spent on important, but non-medical, concerns, better done by another healthcare professional. He looks forward to the day when he can tell his patients that there is a social worker or mental health professional just down the hall. 

Team-based healthcare has become so popular among young doctors that many who might have considered locating on Salt Spring are choosing other communities with a team-based clinic option. As a result, recruiting new doctors has become increasingly difficult. Determined to ensure that every Salt Springer has access to a family physician, several local doctors, including Pete, began working with community partners years ago to develop and propose a Primary Care Network (PCN) to the Ministry of Health.

They were successful! With funding in hand for 11 healthcare providers, Pete, Erin, Eric, and Sarah – and the key health organizations they represent – have their sights set on the location of the Community Health Centre to house our new PCN. While final decisions have not yet been made, the location of the current clinic on King’s Lane is the focus of much activity and hope.

Things yet to be done include:

1. The landowner, Gulf Islands Senior Residence Association (GISRA) (https://www.gisra.ca/), anxiously awaiting news of its funding application to BC Housing for its Kings Lane housing project, is totally supportive of a Community Health Centre and PCN near their proposed housing. 
2. Islands Trust must approve zoning and bylaw changes. It is hoped that their third and final reading will take place at the upcoming December 2025 meeting.
3. As renovations will be needed to expand the current clinic, designs will be needed and building permits issued.
4. Infrastructure, mainly water and sewer, will be needed.
5. Architect’s plans and shovel-ready designs must be completed to proceed. 
6. And, what about money? Our Lady Minto Foundation has enthusiastically taken on this challenge.  A very generous community, over $700,000 has already been raised for their Primary Care Fund that will support the building of a Community Health Centre. As soon as initial steps are completed and architect’s drawings are ready, the Foundation will kick its Capital Campaign fundraising drive into full gear, with every expectation that our community will fund this worthy initiative.
7. Given all the players needed to make this Community Health Centre a reality, the January 2026 hiring of the Executive Director for the Island Community Clinic Society will knit it all together to make sure that Salt Spring can soon celebrate the opening of its new facility. A clear illustration of community support and generosity, the funding for this position for one year has been donated by our Salt Spring Island and Lady Minto Hospital Foundations, partnering to make it happen. 

All key players are positioned, ready, and pulling in the same direction to make it happen.

“When?” was the question on the minds of many. “Soon, hopefully,” was the answer. With timing dependent upon so many factors, our guests were reluctant to give us target dates for the celebratory opening of our new Community Health Centre. But, they are excited and optimistic, telling us that key partners are “all in,” clinic funding promising, and staff salaries committed. According to Pete, we have never been closer to being able to significantly improve our primary care. ”The excitement is in the air!” 

With so many without a primary care physician, is it possible to attach all to a doctor in the near future? Erin believes that the answer is “Yes.” Canada is doing well recruiting physicians and Salt Spring has already benefitted by attracting an American psychiatrist and an English physician. Other doctors are watching with hope as our team-based healthcare centre comes close to being a reality. 

What can we do to help? Money to the Lady Minto Hospital Foundation “Primary Care Fund” would be great! You can donate here: https://ladymintofoundation.com/give/ and specify Primary Care Fund in the online form. 

But, you can also help by registering on the Health Connect Registry (https://hcr.healthlinkbc.ca/primarycarepatientregistration/s/) if you need a doctor. 

If you have a doctor, tell all your friends in need of a primary care physician that this registry works! Currently a number of Salt Spring physicians are using the Health Connect Registry to attach new patients to their panel. Not only will this help more and more people get assigned to doctors, but it will also offer us an accurate count of how many Salt Springers still need a doctor. While we want these numbers to get lower and lower, these statistics indicate to the Ministry of Health our need for additional funding for resources.

As our time together was coming to an end, we briefly explored some different team-based care models: the Primary Care Network and Community Health Centre. Both exist in BC, each with significant strengths and challenges. The province is currently conducting a Primary Care review in BC with a report expected to be released in the next few months. (You can read the preliminary report here: (https://news.gov.bc.ca/files/CARGAPrimaryCareReport1.pdf).  

One of our participants, MLA Rob Botterel, shared a five page document that he had collaborated to produce for submission to this study. You can find this document on his website: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/67c0c1595c624a0d3a6dd434/t/692debc5fe59e97c791ff3e7/1764617157116/CARGA+BC+Primary+Healthcare+Model+%28Final%29.pdf . (You will need to cut and paste this link to open it. If you simply click, you will get Rob’s main website.) His intention in working with others to create this paper was to shine the spotlight on rural health challenges and make sure any legislative decisions recognize the additional resources needed in rural communities to address these challenges. 

Our time over, as we prepared to leave, there was an electricity in the room! Wouldn’t it be amazing to make the great strides envisioned by our guests to significantly improve our primary care? We left with great appreciation for the energy our guests have to take on this challenge when they are already so busy, the tenacity it takes to weave through the dizzying complexities required, and the enthusiasm they share for achieved successes as well as the hard work ahead. (Thank-you Erin, Eric, Pete, and Sarah!) 

Just in case you are interested. . . .This report has been written by Gayle Baker, founder of ASK Salt Spring, currently also a Salt Spring Local Community Commissioner. It has been reviewed and edited by Sarah, Pete, Eric, and Erin.