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5 Minute Read
Community & Culture
Name: Jonathan Saah (he/him/his)Job Title: Data Governance SpecialistYears of Service: 7Worksite: Vernon Jubilee HospitalCommunity: ColdstreamAncestral Territory: syilx NationFavourite Quote / Advice to live by: “What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.” – Nelson Mandela
For Jonathan, Nelson Mandela’s quote highlights the importance of our actions and how they shape the value of our lives. To him, it also suggests the true meaning of life comes from living with purpose, kindness and a commitment to improving the well-being of others.
Jonathan’s career in health care began with a strong foundation in business. He graduated from the co-op business program at Toronto Metropolitan University, gaining practical experience in business and computer sciences through roles at Johnson & Johnson Medical Products, Imperial Oil and Kraft Canada. He also worked as a marketing information analyst for World Vision Canada, a humanitarian aid and advocacy organization.
After completing his master’s in business development at the University of Waterloo, Jonathan spent 12 years in municipal government and consulting as an economic development specialist. He later transitioned to health care, leveraging his business expertise, research and analytical skills in his current role with Digital and Analytics Services at Interior Health (IH).
12 Minute Read
Community & Culture
Street outreach Peer Volunteer Nova-Lee Dixon and her colleague Kelly cross the intersection of Oliver Street and Fourth Avenue as they make their rounds in downtown Williams Lake on a chilly winter morning.
Pulling a small blue wagon, they head towards the nearby bus stop across from a local grocery store where a handful of people sit and mingle, bundled up trying to stay warm. The group awaits the approaching Peer Volunteers and it’s clear the visit is welcomed.
“We’re their bridge to a better life. We are their cheering squad,” Kelly explains, referring to the cycle of addiction.
People who have personal experience with substance use and recovery – referred to as Peers - are playing an increasing role in the planning and delivery of services across Interior Health (IH).
Nova-Lee says they have spoken with many people who regularly use substances and who are trying to quit or find treatment options. For now, though, their goal is to meet people where they’re at and support them in whatever that looks like at the time.
“We were there in that position. That is why I always tell people, ‘I’m in no place to judge anyone for where they’re at, because I was there too,’” says Nova-Lee. “I was that person not too long ago.”
When the Peer Volunteers reach the bus stop, they are greeted warmly as they offer essentials for surviving on the cold northern streets such as bottles of water, hand warmers, granola bars, fruit cups, garbage bags for sitting on to keep dry, feminine hygiene products, gloves, socks and naloxone, a medication used to reverse the effects of opioids in the event of an overdose. The group gratefully takes everything that is offered.
One man jokes with Kelly, responding with “your number” when she asks if there’s anything else he needs. Everyone laughs as the sounds of Bruce Springsteen and Johnny Cash come from a small portable speaker nearby. The Peers smile as they hand out more products, such as Kleenex®, Band-Aids® and harm reduction supplies.
“I love what they do for us because we need it when we are outside after leaving the shelter. We always need stuff for during the day to keep warm, and they give us water,” says one woman named Gwen.
“And they are so kind and so generous,” adds her partner, Dale. “They tell us about their groups and how they want to help us out. It’s awesome.”
Gwen and Dale say they’re waiting and hoping to get treatment somewhere together.
Williams Lake Peer Volunteer Kelly (left) connects with Gwen in downtown Williams Lake.Before Kelly and Nova-Lee move along, they offer people pamphlets containing information about local supports that are available. Then they head back to the nearby IH office on Borland Street where Sarah De Meda, the Peer coordinator overseeing the Williams Lake Peer program, is there to support them.
Building connections in the community
For the last 10 months Sarah has been working to get the Peer program set up in Williams Lake by recruiting and working with the Peer Volunteers to provide that street-level outreach and connection as a bridge to resources for those in need.
“There are a lot of barriers to accessing support, but if you have someone you can talk to it can be easier. They see the Peers and know there is hope.”
Funding for the Peer program is part of the provincial government’s response to the toxic drug crisis faced by communities, both large and small, since it was declared a public health emergency in 2016. The toxic drug emergency has been responsible for 2,416 lives lost within the IH region alone in the last nine years, with toxic drugs now the leading cause of death for people aged 10-59 in B.C.
Jenny Lindstrom, the integrated community care coordinator in Williams Lake, said the Peer program is one of the important pieces of work being done at the street level to reach those at risk.
“Being a clinical person, it’s really helpful for me knowing that feeling of safety is being created by the Peers. They bring such a special energy to their work with people that I can’t do in my role,” Jenny explains of the critical services the Peer Volunteers provide.
“That Peer role is so much about advocacy and support and helping people find the right way to their own recovery, whatever that looks like. The value of that is so tremendous when I look at it from a health-care perspective and being able to access spaces that we wouldn’t be able to normally access and touch people’s hearts in ways that we can’t.”
The Williams Lake Peer Program is up and running thanks to the efforts of Jenny Lindstrom (from left), Nova-Lee Dixon, Eric McAfee and Sarah De Meda.Williams Lake currently has about a half dozen Peer Volunteers with lived experiences who spend time on the streets Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.
“They are reaching people on levels that we don’t reach and being able to advocate back to us what people actually need and want.”
Sarah adds that Peer Volunteers decrease barriers to services by educating health-care providers on how to provide better services for clients.
“They are bridging the connection between us as a health system/institution and our clients, the community,” says Sarah, adding there are about a dozen “harm reduction heroes” who create kits for distribution as well as a diverse team of Peer Volunteers, such as Kelly, Nova-Lee and Eric McAfee who all do street-level outreach.
“These guys are literally saving lives. We had a team a couple weeks ago respond to an opioid poisoning and help the person out,” says Sarah. “That’s the evidence of this being such an important program. The value of this program is the connections these guys are building. I think they are incredible.”
Kelly’s story
Kelly took the first shift with Nova-Lee to kick off the Peer program in Williams Lake about 10 months ago. She has personally saved one life in her time with the program by administering naloxone to someone overdosing.
“We were doing our rounds and we were at the Salvation Army and somebody came to us and said, ‘There’s a dead man around the corner,’” Kelly recalls. “His eyes were wide open, his colour was black and purple. Another person said she used to be a nurse, but hard times had led her to the streets. She started doing mouth-to-mouth. It took four vials to bring this person back. Not one, four.”
Kelly said after she administered the fourth injectable dose of naloxone, the person woke up and sat up as they waited for the ambulance to arrive.
The experience left Kelly feeling empowered, and thankful for having naloxone on hand.
“We’re handing out a lot of naloxone and that’s keeping the deaths at bay. There’s a lot of people being saved with the naloxone. It’s wonderful.”
Williams Lake Peer Volunteer Nova-Lee Dixon gives Kelly a hug after she becomes emotional discussing the need for compassion amidst the toxic drug crisis.Her lived experience has made her want to be a Peer Volunteer.
“I spent 20 years in drug addiction. I used every day, all day. I did whatever it took to get what I needed. I went from owning a restaurant on Vancouver Island to nothing. And I got very sick on the streets.”
“Fentanyl was just coming into play when I was getting off drugs, otherwise, I would be dead. That’s why I do this because it’s not their fault. The fentanyl that has gone into the drugs and has made it impossible to quit. It’s the nature of the drug. You’ve got to do more and more.”
Kelly has her life back now and says she understands that a life as a person who uses drugs is a hard one.
“I know what they’re going through, 100 per cent, and people walking by and just turning their backs or looking away because of what they do, that is not the way to deal with it, not at all. It takes love, heart, compassion,” Kelly says, shedding a tear. “I do it for that reason, and I love them, and they deserve to be helped.”
Eric McAfee’s story
Eric McAfee has been a peer support volunteer in Williams Lake for about seven months and is part of the team who reaches out to people experiencing homelessness.
He’s passionate about helping those who struggle on the streets. He took the day treatment program for harm reduction offered at Foundry Cariboo Chilcotin in Williams Lake due to his own struggles with alcohol and cannabis use.
“When I was in my usage, I was very much a functional addict. It was very much in private. I was home. I was alone. No one really knew I was struggling until it was physically showing on me. That’s when it kind of clicked. People were wondering, ‘Eric what is going on at home?’ I wasn’t showing up to work.”
He describes being a peer volunteer as an eye-opening experience.
“I guess I am a little ashamed to admit it is something I didn’t realize was as prominent in Williams Lake until I started doing outreach. Ever since then, honestly, I’ve been loving it. It’s so nice to go out and hear a lot of these people’s stories and experiences. It’s so nice to see familiar faces as you go out more and more often. They are all so friendly.”
Eric feels Peer Volunteers have had a positive impact on those they are trying to help.
“We get a lot of thank-yous. They are very grateful for what we offer. Sometimes they will give us a heads up if there are a lot of people experiencing overdoses. They’ll give us a general idea of areas to check out on our route. They’re very trusting of us.”
Some of the clientele that Eric sees are younger, like him, and often people he went to school with.
“That was definitely a shock of reality for me. That tells me these types of situations can happen to anybody and at any point in their lives—no matter if they want it to happen, if they were willing to have it happen or if they were ready for it.”
He encourages people to check in with family and friends.
“Ask the hard questions. Sit down and have the conversations that aren’t the most pleasant to have because a lot of the time that will really open the door to more trust, to actually getting people that may be struggling with substance use or mental health or whatever their issues may be, to express what’s going on. ‘Are you OK?’ A question as simple as that may that get people to crack right open.”
Like many of the Peer Volunteers, Eric urges people to reduce the stigma associated with substance use and have compassion for others.
“Compassion is a beautiful thing.”
Nova-Lee Dixon’s story
Nova-Lee is soft spoken, but there is no mistaking the power and wisdom in her words.
At 29-years-old, she has been drug-free for seven years now following a heroin addiction that almost claimed her life.
“I should have been dead, and my stroke is what saved me from dying,” says Nova-Lee. “I ended up having a stroke from shooting needles and was hospitalized. I had to take a look at my life back then and decide if I wanted to go back to the street and just survive or…you know. My family was really scared, and I looked at them and I wanted to be better, so I decided to stop using. Maintaining my sobriety has been the best decision I have ever made.”
Nova-Lee attributes her lived experience with being more compassionate and wanting to give back to the community and help others by being a Peer Volunteer.
The challenging work has given her a new perspective on the reasons behind why many people are struggling on the streets.
“A lot of people think they are out there because they want to, but it’s not true. A lot of people I have encountered have stories of a hard life and, you know, some people just don’t know how to cope any other way than how they are doing it. That’s just the reality of that. People should be more understanding.”
Nova-Lee says one of the more challenging aspects of being a Peer Volunteer has been her own reaction to providing harm reduction supplies, something that has surprised her.
“As an addict beforehand, it was weird for me. I kind of felt uncomfortable, like I was contributing or enabling in a way. I had to talk to my boss and ask, how do you navigate this way of thinking? I didn’t like feeling responsible, but I just came to understand that people have the right to live a high-risk life and I’m just giving them safe tools to use with, so they don’t add to that risk.”
For Nova-Lee, avoiding difficulties in her own past led her into substance use at a young age.
“Sooner or later it just kind of bubbles up and turns into something else and you just have to address it. Being a parent, being a Peer Volunteer and the tools I have now, I can see in hindsight that I wasn’t using the best coping mechanisms. I was avoiding parts of myself and I just needed to allow myself to heal emotionally and physically.”
A proud mom of two girls, Nova-Lee now works two jobs, attends school and is also taking courses at Thompson Rivers University.
Her advice to others: “If they are young, I’d say just don’t grow up so fast, you know? It’s not that fun being an adult. And maintain that love and connection with your family and with things you like doing. And stay in school.”
Seeing hope in Peer Volunteers
“A lot of amazing, talented people are dying, and people that are lost and forgotten, and so the things that I strive for within our programs is to find the people that are in the cracks,” says Jenny of IH.
“We need to find access to those people and do as much education as we can to decrease the harm. There has been a lot of needless deaths. We’ve lost, just from our youth programs, we’ve lost a few and it’s been really challenging for the staff and for the community members and for the families.”
Jenny admits the work her team does is often heavy but, like the people they serve, she sees hope in the Peer Volunteers.
“A lot of us go into health care because we want to fix people. Peers remind us that people are where they’re at and they’re just as valuable where they’re at. And it’s just that constant checking of ego,” she says.
“The Peers that we have in all our programs allow us to hear the voices of the parents, the families, the people experiencing addiction. We cannot properly provide health care, whatever that might look like, without that voice. So, I’m humbled by their work.”
Sarah says the work has her pausing and reflecting on her own privilege regularly, and she is thankful to be part of the Peer team.
“I’ve learned so much in the last 10 months, from Nova-Lee and Eric, from our team, from the feedback they’ve provided. I’m an occupational therapist by trade but this shows the value of connection and again really meeting people where they are at. Looking beyond the clinical, because that’s how we heal.”
Learn more about what it means to be a part of the Mental Health and Substance Use Peer Engagement & Inclusion team and how to apply to be a Peer Volunteer or Peer Advisor.
4 Minute Read
Health & Wellness
Christine Aiken is on stage in front of more than 200 people at the Penticton Lakeside Resort for an event billed the Memory Café. She speaks to the audience without notes nor a pause, then takes questions from the audience for the better part of an hour.
To hear and see Christine, it would be impossible to know she has been living with vascular dementia for more than 10 years.
This is Christine’s fourth Memory Café keynote talk. She’s spoken at Memory Café events in Oliver, Osoyoos and Keremeos, organized by Medical Arts Health Research Group. She regularly travels around the Okanagan sharing her experiences, ideas, wisdom and tips about living with dementia.
3 Minute Read
Community & Culture
On January 22, the Health Sciences Academy, a collaborative partnership between Interior Health (IH) and School District 73 (Kamloops-Thompson), celebrated a significant milestone: the successful conclusion of its first-ever semester.
Launched in September 2024, this innovative program gives grade 11 and 12 students a unique opportunity to explore exciting health-care careers by immersing them in a range of in-demand roles.
With a strong focus on real-world, hands-on experiences, the program allows students to shadow IH health-care professionals, giving them the chance to observe, ask questions and learn the nuances of these highly specialized career paths.
3 Minute Read
Community & Culture
Name: Sherry-Lynn Picheniuk (she/her/hers)Job Title: Patient Care Coordinator/Registered NurseYears of Service: 25 yearsWorksite: Penticton Regional HospitalCommunity: PentictonAncestral Territory: syilx/OkanaganFavourite Quote / Advice to live by: “Let’s fix the problem. What are our options?”
A true team player who has “no countdown to retirement,” Sherry-Lynn Picheniuk is fuelled by the energy and trust of her colleagues at Penticton Regional Hospital (PRH). The patient care coordinator and registered nurse (RN), who has been with Interior Health (IH) for 25 years, says she hopes to continue supporting her team as long as possible while bringing joy to patients and clients.
4 Minute Read
Health & Wellness
Eight youth have been selected as winners for the 2024 Beyond the Buzz: Youth Voices on Tobacco, Cannabis, Vaping & Alcohol poster contest.
Youth in grades 6–12 living in the Interior Health region were invited to participate in the contest. Judges from the Interior Health YOUTHWISE Advisory Group, all youth themselves, evaluated and scored each poster based on a specific set of criteria.
The intent of the poster contest was to spark meaningful conversations about youth tobacco, cannabis, vapour product and alcohol use, and their impacts on youths’ health, environment and their communities.
“By collaborating with youth, we learn and understand how they view the effects of tobacco, cannabis, vaping and alcohol on their lives, their friends and their communities,” says Dr. Fatemeh Sabet, a medical health officer at Interior Health. “The contest is also an opportunity to invite youth—who, with their developing brains, are more vulnerable the effects of the substances—to empower and educate themselves and others. If we can intervene earlier, we can help assure the long-term health of our younger generation.”
4 Minute Read
Community & Culture
Foundations in the Interior region raise funds that support medical equipment, care needs, and innovative local initiatives in their communities. Each organization includes respected community leaders, volunteers and staff who are passionate about meeting the needs of patients and families in Interior Health. Thanks to the generosity of their supporters, we all have a stronger health system.
In this next story of our series on the incredible health-care and hospital foundations throughout our region, we interviewed Jerry Sanders, vice president and acting president of the Nicola Valley Health Care Endowment Foundation (NVHCEF).
4 Minute Read
Community & Culture
Name: Joanna (Jo) Harrison (she/her/hers)Job Title: Executive Director, Clinical Informatics, Digital HealthYears of Service: 18Worksite: RegionalCommunity: KamloopsAncestral Territory: Secwépemc NationFavourite Quote / Advice to live by: “Life can be short and not all of us in this world get the gift of a long and healthy life. I try not to take that for granted so stay true to my values.” – Jo Harrison
Joanna (Jo) Harrison knew from a young age she was interested in a career in health care. While most of her family are academics or engineers, Jo found herself drawn to the complexities of the human body.
After earning a Bachelor of Science in Physical Therapy in London, UK, Jo worked in a tertiary hospital and joined the Territorial Army Medical Corps as a lieutenant physiotherapist. “I spent many of my weekends dressed in green practising skills to respond, coordinate and manage large-scale trauma situations and run field hospitals,” recalls Jo.
5 Minute Read
Health & Wellness
Smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death in B.C. More than 6,000 people die a year in B.C. due to tobacco use. What’s perhaps even more concerning is nine out of 10 people who use tobacco started in adolescence, according to the BC Lung Foundation.
January 19–25 is National Non-Smoking Week. To mark this week, we invited Aditi, a middle school student in Kelowna, to chat with Dr. Silvina Mema, IH’s deputy chief medical health officer about smoking and vaping. Aditi is a member of Interior Health’s YOUTHWISE Advisory Group, an advisory group of youth 13–19 years old who help improve youth-focused health and well-being services.
Read on to learn more about tobacco, smoking and vaping. Learn why vaping isn’t harmless and some good reasons to quit. We also offer a list of free resources and programs to help you commit to quit for good in 2025.
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