Feelings First program helps parents raise healthy children

3 minutes

In the early years of life, particularly from birth to five years old, a child’s social and emotional development is just as vital as their physical growth.

Early childhood experts say the years before kindergarten are a critical time that shapes how a child expresses feelings, manages stress, builds relationships and learns about themselves and others.

Vernon and IH partner to create a dementia-friendly community

4 minutes

Experts say creating a community that supports people living with dementia creates safer spaces, ensuring people of all ages and abilities meet their needs close to home.

The Alzheimer Society of Canada estimates more than 1.7 million people in Canada are expected to be living with dementia by 2050. It’s about triple the roughly 600,000 Canadians currently living with the illness.

How to stay connected during your hospital stay

3 minutes

For many patients, having access to news and entertainment can make a hospital stay feel less stressful and isolating.

Interior Health (IH)’s Bring Your Own Device program encourages patients to bring their own smartphones, tablets or laptops to the hospital for entertainment and communication. Bedside TVs are no longer available.

Bringing your own device gives you more control over your experience and a choice in how you stay connected and entertained.

All our hospitals offer free, upgraded Wi‑Fi, so you can:

Grand Forks doctor’s addiction medicine program making an impact

6 minutes

Dr. Mark Szynkaruk—known simply as Dr. Mark to his patients—is a family doctor based in the small town of Grand Forks. A graduate of the University of Toronto’s medical school, he came to the Kootenay Boundary region over a decade ago as part of the first cohort of UBC’s newly-launched rural family medicine residency. He was drawn to the variety of work that medicine in a small, rural town offers and knew early on he wanted to work in addiction medicine.