Health

The Quadra Way: When It Matters, We Do It Together

Originally published in the Bird’s Eye

The Quadra Island Health Society (QIHS) and the Quadra Island Foundation (QIF) have joined forces to launch a community fundraising campaign aimed at securing a new physician for the Quadra Island Medical Clinic (QIMC).

The Health Society has operated the clinic since 2016, when a volunteer board came together to keep it from closing, followed closely by the purchase of the practice and all of its equipment the next year.

Dr. Steve Hughes has been the clinic’s physician for over eight years and is now preparing to retire. Although QIHS has been recruiting his replacement through Island Health for over 18 months, not a single applicant has come forward. For now, the clinic remains open five days a week, with Dr. Hughes and locum physicians keeping care available.

This new campaign, called the Health Access Fund, has a goal of $50,000 and is being administered by the QIF, which will issue charitable tax receipts for donations of $50 or more. It marks the first time the two organizations have worked together in this capacity. “Every Islander benefits from the services offered by the Quadra Island Health Society whether they be direct patients or not,” shared the Foundation. “We are proud to support them by making sure Quadra Islanders don’t have to travel off-island for basic medical care.”

The turning point came when an anonymous donor contributed
$10,000 — enough to cover the down payment on a contract
with Canada Medical Careers, a professional physician recruiting
agency. That contribution shifted the approach drastically. Rather
than continuing to wait on the provincial system alone, QIHS was
able to take the search into their own hands.

This decision was based on numerous layers of information. From
conversations with new graduates and Island Health recruiters, the picture is consistent: few young physicians are drawn to family practice in rural settings, and many doctors considering semi-retirement find rural communities limiting in ways that are hard to overcome without the right information and introduction. Professional recruitment addresses exactly that gap — bringing specialized expertise, national reach, and a dedicated effort to put Quadra in front of the right people at the right time.

Canada Medical Careers has been busy building what the team is calling the Quadra package — a comprehensive profile of the clinic, the island, and the life that comes with it. Local businesses, education, services, community culture, and island life are captured in words, photos, and video for full impact. The pitch is straightforward: “Island Life on Island Time.”

The search is focused on physicians trained in Canada or the United States. BC regulations require six months of on-site supervision for doctors trained outside North America — something the QIMC simply cannot currently provide.

It’s also worth understanding what QIHS is, because the stakes of this campaign go well beyond finding a family doctor. The Health Society is a board of nine volunteers — no special expertise required, just commitment — who have been managing the clinic through staffing gaps, funding shortfalls, equipment breakdowns, power outages, and the endless administrative weight of keeping a rural medical practice solvent and functional. They do this without pay, on their own time, month after month. The clinic they’ve kept running is not a simple GP office.

What makes QIMC more than a family practice is the range of
services it hosts:

  • Dr. Hughes runs a monthly clinic on Read Island
  • The Campbell River Hospital lab runs outreach at the clinic two days a week, with a third day in progress
  • The clinic has an ECG machine operated by a trained registered nurse, with results sent directly to the ordering physician, as well as Holter monitors for 24-hour cardiac monitoring
  • A Mental Health Outreach Worker visits twice a month
  • A social worker covers both Quadra clinics and as well as the Cortes clinic
  • A full-scope RN — shared with Harbourside clinic — works with patients at both Quadra locations, handling assessments, medication reviews, and patient education that a busy physician doesn’t always have time to provide.
  • These services exist because QIHS built and maintained the infrastructure to host them. They are not guaranteed to survive a prolonged vacancy

The stakes extend beyond the clinic itself. Betty Doak, Treasurer and founding member of QIHS said that they “along with Cortes and Read Island, and both resident First Nation bands, spent 10 months meeting and organizing an application to the Ministry of Health, for a multi-campused Community Health Centre for the Discovery Island area.”

That application was submitted in March 2024. The Ministry has expressed interest, but funding has not yet been assigned and the timeline remains unknown. Losing QIMC would likely disqualify the application entirely — and with it, the possibility of a stable, long-term regional health model that has been years in the making.

Without a physician, the clinic also loses the overhead payments that currently fund half its operating costs, meaning the financial pressure of an empty practice ripples outward into every service the building hosts.

The Bird’s Eye has been reporting on this unfolding situation and you can find our past coverage online at thebirdseye.ca, most notably our two-part cover story in the Dec. 17 and 24, 2025 issues. It’s worth returning to something Betty said at the December QIHS AGM: “I don’t think we’re going to lose anything. I think we’re going to gain something brand new.” To me, that speaks to the resilient spirit of our community, always at the ready to fight together for what we need while trusting it will find us.

The Quadra Island Foundation is now accepting donations to the Health Access Fund. With the first $10,000 already donated, the remaining $40,000 will cover the balance of the recruiting contract — paid in stages as the search progresses and when a new physician arrives ready to work. The board is clear-eyed about what they can and cannot promise: this is an attempt to secure a replacement physician, not a guarantee. What is certain is that without the funding, the search cannot move forward.

To donate, you can e-transfer directly to [email protected] or deposit into the QIF donations account at our local Credit Union. For more information, contact the Foundation at [email protected]. Tax receipts are issued for all donations of $50 or more.

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