Category Archives: Health

Health

Lions Gate Hospital deploys robotic surgical system

By Abby Luciano, North Shore News, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

On a recent Saturday morning in an operating room at Lions Gate Hospital, Dr. Nava Aslani’s set to work performing surgery. 

But it’s not the typical sight of a surgeon hovering over a patient. She is, in fact, a few metres away from her patient, sitting in a chair looking through a viewer. With subtle foot movements, she uses pedals to control a camera trained on the patient. With her thumb and middle finger placed in a console, her hand movements control robotic arms that make critical, precise movements while working on the patient. And, in this instance, the patient is a small plate of colourful blobs.

The new machine is the Da Vinci Xi Robotic Surgical System, allowing surgeons at the North Vancouver hospital to perform procedures in the Paul Myers Tower for prostate removal; bowel, rectal and kidney cancers; hysterectomies and complex hernias.

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Health, Politics

Dr Anna Kindy: The State of Health Care in BC During 2025

In addition to being the MLA for our North Island riding, Dr. Anna Kindy is also the Health Critic for the Conservative Party of British Columbia. She recently had a conversation with Cortes Currents about the state of healthcare in British Columbia.

Anna Kindy: “That portfolio has kept me quite busy, to be honest. There are issues throughout British Columbia, like we’ve heard on the news. I have my tentacles in all sorts of health authorities, and people are communicating with me from the front lines.”

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Health, Politics

Area C Director’s Report: primary care recruitment & positive e-petition policy shift

From the desk of Regional Director Robyn Mawhinney

Hello,
This report shares some recent learning about primary care provider recruitment and news about a Board decision regarding receipt of electronic petitions.

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Health

Proposed Discovery Island Community Health Centre.

 The Quadra, Cortes, and Surge Narrows communities, as well as the Klahoose and We Wai Kai First Nations, have sent the BC Ministry of Health an application for funding to set up a Discovery Island Community Health Centre. 

“It offers stability for practitioners. It offers leadership stability through a joint board and a hired executive director. It offers some economies of scale in terms of practitioners being shared and supplies being shared. It offers a shared medical record between the communities. Potentially, one of the things is using video conferencing as opposed to an in-person visit, if that’s appropriate. It’s community driven, it doesn’t involve Victoria telling remote communities what works for them, because that generally doesn’t work for them,” explained Bernice McGowan, President of the Cortes Community Health Association (CCHA) and a member of the planning committee for the proposed Health Centre. 

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Health, Indigenous Nations, Politics, Transportation

Area C Director’s Report: update on UBCM advocacy

Hello, 
The past week was a blur of learning, advocating, and networking as I was immersed for five and a half days at the annual Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) convention which this year took place in lovely Victoria BC.

Along with study sessions, learning workshops, discussion forums, and plenary sessions from early morning till late afternoon, UBCM provides an opportunity for regional districts and municipalities to advocate on their priority issues with provincial Ministers and to meet with provincial staff as well. This report shares an update on advocacy the SRD Board & I engaged in, representing regional and community concerns with the Province.

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