While Merle Crawford was in palliative care at Royal Inland Hospital (RIH), the former pediatric nurse did her best to remain bright and cheerful.

But there were days when it was a struggle; times when she needed someone to cheer her up.

Enter Saylor the therapy dog.

Saylor brought a bright smile to Merle’s face, and to her family’s, when he appeared in the room.

Two weeks before his 71st birthday, Les Fiedler suffered a heart attack while playing pickleball in his community of Creston.

Thankfully, his friends and family knew how to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and how to use the facility’s automated external defibrillator (AED) machine – a medical device that can analyze the heart’s rhythm and, if necessary, deliver an electrical shock, or defibrillation, to help get the heart back in a regular rhythm.

As she tells her story, Shelley Rowe’s eyes well up with emotion. Her stress level spikes momentarily, which triggers a slight cough. Yet in spite of an occasional flare-up, her breathing is more relaxed than it’s been in years.

At 81, Alan Samuelson is in a unique position to share his story and tell others what he knows about living well with HIV.

In the early 1980s, he was admitted to an Alberta hospital with a ruptured stomach artery. After an urgent call went out through the hospital, staff and visitors provided 29 units of blood. But before 1985, no test existed to screen for HIV and he received a transfusion containing the virus.

Ever wonder what goes into caring for a person who arrives at the emergency department with a serious and time-sensitive medical condition? The answer is a lot of heart, expertise, and a great deal of practice.

One way doctors and nurses at Kelowna General Hospital get the opportunity to practice and build their skills is through simulation.

When Vanessa, Kris, Sheila, and Beth met as a working group for the first time, something just clicked.

“We found that we worked really well together,” explains Aboriginal health lead Kris Murray. “We had great chemistry, we got a lot done, and there was a lot of laughter.”

Each woman brought her unique lived experience and career journey to their collaboration—a collaboration that led to a bi-weekly podcast, Interior Voices.

Not all healing happens through health care. Sometimes what’s needed is more about healing the soul than the body.

That’s what happened last year in Grand Forks, a community struggling to overcome the devastation caused by flooding in 2018.