Sunday December 4, 2022 | SOOKE, BC
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
The Island Health Board of Directors will host an in-person Public Forum in Sooke on Thursday December 8.
It will be held from 2:30 to 4 pm at Sooke Community Hall, 2037 Shields Road, as well as being livestreamed.
Island Health President & CEO Kathy MacNeil will provide an updated on health and care delivery.
Other local Island Health leaders will also attend, including local Medical Health Officer Dr. Murray Fyfe who give an update on public health and wellness.
Community organizations will also make presentations.
Sooke health trends:
Sooke deals with being 35 km away from a major hospital (Victoria General Hospital) generally only accessible on the one-way-in/out on Highway 14.
Sooke has a medical health clinic owned by local doctors who practice there. The West Coast Family Medical Clinic receives BC government funding for staff and other expenses, as announced in 2019. For Sooke residents this may have buffered the shortage of family doctors that is seen around BC (presently about 1 million, or 20% of people in BC are without a family doctor).
Back in 2016 when Dr Richard Stanwick was Island Health’s top doctor, he stated at the public forum held at Sooke Community Hall that year, that statistically women in Sooke die at the youngest age of all women in BC. He boldly and openly attributed that to the men in those women’s lives, backed with data.
The Sooke community does benefit by several local organizations that take the well-being of Sooke residents under their collective wing.
The Ayre Manor seniors facility in Sooke successfully kept COVID at bay in the early part of the pandemic (2020/2021) when other long-term care facilities were challenged with transmission of the new virus, and before immunization was available.
Public questions to the board:
Questions can be submitted in advance by emailing to asktheboard@islandhealth.ca or asked by those attending the in-person event.
===== RELATED:
Decoupling of Langford and Sooke in proposed new BC electoral boundaries (November 22, 2022)
No COVID at Ayre Manor in Sooke (January 13, 2021)
Two new doctors and more office space for existing Sooke medical clinic (May 5, 2019)
===== ABOUT ISLAND SOCIAL TRENDS:
Island Social Trends is a professional news portal at islandsocialtrends.ca .
Fully online since mid-2020, Island Social Trends emerged from the extensive groundwork of previous print publications in the west shore: MapleLine Magazine (2008-2010), Sooke Voice News (2011-2013), and West Shore Voice News (2014-2020).
Since 2008, journalist and editor Mary P Brooke has taken a socioeconomic lens to the news of the Greater Victoria west shore and south Vancouver Island region, including BC provincial news, and national news impacts.
Ms Brooke holds a B.Sc. in nutrition and community health education, and a certificate in Public Relations. Her career in journalism and publishing goes back to the 1980s.