Category Archives: Health

Health

Campbell River expands overdose response services with $1.14M investment from feds

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By Nora O’Malley, Ha-Shilth-Sa, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Campbell River, B.C. – More overdose response services are coming to Campbell River and the surrounding area.

For 2026–27, Health Canada approved roughly $1.14 million in funding for a new Mobile Outreach Program, which partners the City of Campbell River (the City) and Lookout Housing and Health Society. 

“The City remains deeply concerned about the tragic loss of life due to toxic drugs. These losses profoundly affect families, friends and colleagues across the community. This is why, when we noted the call for proposals for the Emergency Treatment Fund from Health Canada in the fall of 2025, we decided to submit an application under very tight timelines,” said Jeff Ford, the City’s director of community safety.

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Health, Waste

The Quadra Project – Enoughness

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Our primordial history continues to haunt us. Try as we might, we can’t seem to escape the psychological dynamics that have so indelibly shaped us during our many millennia as primitive foragers and hunters eking out our precarious survival in an untamed nature. This vulnerability is so baked into our genetic memory that it subconsciously expresses itself in behaviours that are irrational and ultimately destructive. This subject is introduced by Jodi Wilson, an Australian health journalist and author, in an essay, Enough’s Enough: We Are Overwhelmed With Having Too Much Stuff (The Guardian Weekly, January 23, 2026).

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Health

Raising $50,000 to help find a doctor for Quadra Island

After serving at the Quadra Island Medical Clinic for eight years, Dr Steve Hughes will soon be retiring. That puts the island in a difficult spot and inn this morning’s interview Marc Doll, Chair of the Quadra Island Foundation, explains how his organization and the clinic have teamed and raised more than $50,000 towards finding Hughes replacement.  

Marc Doll: “Dr. Hughes, who I believe is the doctor for several people on Cortes as well, is retiring. He’s stretched out his retirement as far as he can. Come September, he will be doing the official retirement, which puts that clinic, which is anchored by a doctor, in a stressful position.” 

“The Quadra Island Health Society, which was formed last time a doctor left that clinic, has been searching for a doctor for some time now, and it’s been a rough rough ride. It’s hard to find doctors willing to come to specialized clinics in rural settings. So they decided, as a board, to reach out to a professional healthcare recruiter. That comes with a pretty hefty price tag, at least from my perspective, and the decision was to go to the community to find the funds to hire a recruiter to bring a doctor, to the island to keep that clinic open.” 

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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).

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Energy, Health

Climate activist calls on New Westminster council to support assessment of gas industry

By Theresa McManus, Freshet News, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A climate activist is urging New Westminster city council to follow the lead of other cities and call for an independent assessment of B.C.’s gas industry.

Aggie Black, a member of the New Westminster Climate Action Hub and the Canadian Association of Nurses for the Environment, said she is deeply concerned about the climate crisis and its impact on people’s health and the health-care system. 

“I am here to join my voice with hundreds of other health professionals who are calling for an accumulative independent health impact assessment of B.C.’s gas industry,” she told council at its May 11 meeting. “There is a large and growing body of peer-reviewed research that links fracking and LNG production to health harms for humans.”

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