Housing Is Healthcare: Equity In Access For All Residents
Date: Wednesday 14 May 2025
Time: 12:00 – 1:00 PM Pacific Time
Location: Zoom
Talk Abstract
Inequities exist within Canada’s public healthcare system, including geographic disparities that impact access to care. In British Columbia, patients who need highly specialized care must access their treatment in the Lower Mainland. Travelling for care is incredibly challenging due to stress, care related expenses and inclement weather. Consequently, patients who are not urban-dwelling experience substantial barriers while trying to access treatment. There are ongoing efforts to increase and advocate for health equity for patients who live outside of urban-centres.
This presentation will present findings from a mix-methods study undertaken in BC (April-August, 2024) to understand and document the cost consequences to and experiences of transplant patients who had to relocate to Vancouver from outside of the lower mainland to receive transplant care, including evidence-derived recommendations to improve access to care.
Results from this study are part of a larger evidence-based strategy to ensure equity in access to health care for all residents across British Columbia, regardless of location and proximity to services. It builds on earlier work identifying the out-of-pocket costs incurred by rural residents due to medically necessary travel and political advocacy through a resolution to the association of municipal governance, Union of BC Municipalities, entitled, ‘Housing is Healthcare’. More broadly, this work occurred within the larger context of evidence-based advocacy support system changes that help create equity in access to care and better health for all rural BC residents.
Speaker Bios
Jude Kornelsen, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Practice (UBC), co-Director of the Centre for Rural Health Research and an Honorary Professor, Sydney Medical School. For the past 20 years she has worked towards creating, examining and sharing comprehensive evidence to support health planning for vulnerable populations, particularly in the area of rural maternity care, surgical care and transport. She has a keen interest in rigorously documenting the experiences of those who often do not have a voice in the health care system and creating evidence-based solutions to increase access to care for these populations. Key values that underlie her work include recognizing the centrality of patients and communities in the planning process; working closely with key system partners, privileging an expansive definition of evidence from individual, key partner and community experience to scientific evidence and approaching research from an integrated perspective with a strong focus on knowledge translation and policy outputs.
Asmaa Anwar, Community Partner
My name is Asmaa Anwar, and I received a heart transplant in June 2019. Thinking about relocating from Vancouver Island for the transplant weighed heavily on me. I had lost my job 6 months prior to the transplant date, and I couldn’t imagine relocating to Vancouver (one of the most expensive cities to live in) with no income.
A million thoughts went through my head after it was confirmed that I needed a new heart, and none were comforting, especially at a time when I needed comforting. Where was I going to stay? How could I possibly book a place not knowing when my new heart would become available? How could I afford to stay in Vancouver?? I was almost ready to give up and at one point, I told my social worker in Victoria to give the heart to someone else, because I couldn’t afford it.
Luckily, a good friend, a past Chair of the BC Firefighters Burn Fund Centre (BFC), arranged for me to stay at the Burn Centre during the assessment process. The manager of the BFC sympathized with me and my situation and offered me a place at the Burn Centre to recover post-Transplant. This gesture was a huge relief and was the thing that allowed me to get through the transplant process. The BFC is heavily subsidised by BC Firefighters, and it made the idea of living in Vancouver for 3-4 months, while maintaining my house in Sidney, BC, possible. I will never forget their generosity. BC needs more places like the BFC to provide affordable housing to transplant patients, or to any patients, needing to relocate to Vancouver for health care, because life is good when you’re healthy! Life is worth living! And no obstacles should stand in your way of receiving life-saving health care.