On Saturday, Santé Ouest, a health center for Francophones in British Columbia, was inaugurated in Vancouver. It will open its doors on Monday. The center’s medical director anticipates that more than 4,000 patients will be able to benefit from long-term follow-up over the coming years.
The Santé Ouest center is located at 2025 West Broadway in the Kitsilano neighborhood. It’s an accomplishment for the community, says Dr. Brian Conway, its medical director.
We are lacking French-speaking support, considers Yves Paquet, resident of Vancouver. I have never had a family doctor who speaks French. [C’est] very good news.
This is an obstacle that I encountered: having [lieux] where no one spoke French, where it was a little complicated, agrees Constance Noël, who has lived in the province for 7 years. So it was up to me to learn the vocabulary before going there, she reports.
Nour Enayeh, general director of RésoSanté and the Santé Ouest center, says she is very happy with the opening of an establishment in which health professionals will be able to administer care in the patients’ mother tongue.
The whole team is really, really excited, she observes. And then we really, really can’t wait to introduce the health center to our community.
We can deliver all the multidisciplinary services that one would expect from any other primary health clinic in British Columbia.
A quote from Dr. Brian Conway, medical director of the Santé Ouest center
Access Santé Ouest services
To access this health care, interested parties can request it on the provincial government’s Health Connect Registry website. By registering on the site and specifying the need for a French translation, the request will be sent to the Santé Ouest center.
This is how the ministry will give us waiting lists with which we can work, says Nour Enayeh.
If a request for health services in English has already been submitted by an interested patient, what you can do is call 811 and ask to change [pour le] French, she adds.
The Santé Ouest center is preparing to welcome patients with a few nurses and doctors hired, as well as a clinic director. We have a very good team, considers Nour Enayeh.
We are still recruiting for other doctors, we are looking for two nurse practitioners and we are in discussions with workers [sociaux]she specifies.
Moreover, social workers will make sure to maintain contact with members of the province’s French-speaking community, with the help of the Fédération des francophones de la Colombie-Britannique (FFCB), in particular.
Dr. Conway maintains that this will make it possible to respond in the best possible way to all health needs in French.
