Kelowna Radio AM1150 news article

The following is an excerpt from the website of Kelowna Radio AM1150. To read the full article, go to http://www.am1150.ca/News/Local/Penticton/Story.aspx?ID=2010320

“the goal in Princeton is to understand how to improve health care for residents living with life-limiting chronic diseases.

Professor Barb Pesut says Princeton’s rural location, an aging population with multiple chronic illness conditions and a physician shortage create numerous challenges that her UBC team hopes to find solutions for.

The Princeton Support Our Health Care Coalition recently received a $5,000 team building grant from the Rural Health Services Research Network of British Columbia. The coalition will work with UBC researchers while they try to answer questions surrounding available services for the chronically ill, which Pesut describes as an exchange of knowledge. By next June, Pesut is hoping they will have identified some priority research questions and received some targeted resources to begin to answer those questions and help deal with the health care issues of those living in Princeton.”

UBC Okanagan and Princeton residents team up to review care for chronically ill


Teambuilding grant brings residents and researchers together to improve care

A partnership between UBC faculty and residents of Princeton might just be what the doctor ordered for our community.

Members of the Princeton Support our Health Care Coalition (SOHC) will work with researchers from UBC’s Okanagan campus to gain knowledge about how to improve care for people in Princeton who live with life-limiting chronic illness.

Princeton has struggled through its own health care crisis in the past—too few physicians, an aging population, and a hospital threatened by emergency room closures. Currently, the hospital emergency department is closed four nights each week and acute and specialist care services have been reduced, often resulting in people to driving to Penticton or Kelowna for medical services.

UBC Assoc. Prof. Barb Pesut, Canada Research Chair in Health, Ethics, and Diversity, says the burden of having to travel for health care may mean that people choose not to attend a medical appointment, delay treatment, or choose to re-locate away from their home community. Continue reading