Downtown Eastside roundtable consultation begins this week
VCH is always looking for ways to improve how it delivers and supports health services and, most importantly, what it can do to improve the health and health outcomes of the people it serves. This is the motivation behind a series of roundtable consultation meetings that VCH began hosting with Downtown Eastside (DTES) stakeholders on December 5, starting with a breakfast roundtable VCH President and CEO Dr. Ostrow held with directors and managers.
VCH currently provides $66M in funding to about 40 agencies for 117 programs in an eight block radius of Vancouver’s DTES. The area has an estimated population of 18,000 with around half of them using or depending on the services provided through VCH funding.
“Using these resources, we have come a long way. After 15 years of concentrated effort in the DTES, this community IS healthier. It is evolving and as its needs change, so should our health services,” said Mary Ackenhusen, COO, Vancouver. “It’s time to revisit the work we do, to build on our strengths, and where needed, make changes to ensure we’re doing the right things for the right people at the right time.”
The first step towards achieving our goals was commissioning a third-party environmental assessment of the community through the eyes and ears of our partners, stakeholders and residents. VCH engaged a writer and researcher, Charles Campbell, to interview over 40 community members and organizations in August and September to hear their thoughts on relationships and health and health services in the DTES. Campbell summarized that feedback in a discussion paper, “Working with health agencies and partners in the Downtown Eastside,” which will be shared at upcoming roundtable sessions and posted on the VCH website (www.vch.ca) on Friday, December 7. More than 40 representatives from 15 community and agency representatives are expected to attend each of the two invitation-only sessions.
These roundtables are the beginning of an ongoing consultation process between VCH and the DTES agencies to look at ways to improve service delivery, accountability and health outcomes – not to cut costs in this community. VCH wants to be an effective and trusted partner in the DTES. These roundtables, building on the feedback provided through Charles Campbell’s discussion paper, will focus on how VCH and the DTES agencies can achieve that. We will also consider the thoughts and experience our own VCH leaders who serve this community as we gather their feedback in additional internal events and staff engagement sessions, with the latter starting next week.