Interior Health kept long-term care residents safe during wildfires

It all started on Aug. 4 when 124 long-term care residents in Osoyoos were evacuated due to the wildfire threat. As additional fires started in other regions, that situation quickly developed into a summer nobody will soon forget.

On Aug. 18, 861 residents in West Kelowna, Kelowna, Lake Country and Chase were forced out of their homes in a moment’s notice.

“During the time when the wildfire was encroaching [the Okanagan and Shuswap regions], we had many different people that we had to coordinate all at the same time,” said Joanna Harrison, IH executive director of Seniors Specialized Care Transformation. “One of the first and foremost things we need to look at is the residents’ safety and make the decision - the hard decision - whether to evacuate or not evacuate.”

Joanna says it’s difficult moving one patient at a time, not to mention close to 900 during the late-summer evacuations.

Susan Brown, president and CEO of Interior Health, says she admired witnessing staff rally around each other and the entire region during this unprecedented wildfire season. In particular, she says the organization’s vision, mission and values shone throughout the emergency.

Joanna noted the compassion could be seen everywhere.

“I can think of the Digital Health employee that dove in the car and drove the laptops down to the new site [in Summerland] to ensure people have access to the health records,” noted Joanna. “I can recall the times where we’ve called on individuals to drive the buses - the therapy staff to help transfer people in and out of the homes. We have the support staff that have packed snacks for the drive on the buses, and the support staff dropping linens off at two o’clock in the morning and having to prepare food for an additional 100 people.”

Ten long-term care homes within Interior Health were evacuated to 32 different sites, including in Vancouver Coastal Health.

After authorities declared an “all clear” and it was deemed safe to begin repatriation, a complex phased repatriation process was initiated. The final residents returned home on Sept. 13 in West Kelowna.

President and CEO Susan Brown also extended a heartfelt thank you and her gratitude for all the hard work Interior Health employees put into caring for others during the emergency. She also thanks everyone across the province who stepped in to help care for patients.

“All our staff - physicians, volunteers - they’re always willing to lean into this work, but my colleagues across the province - the other CEOs in the geographical health authorities - when these things happen, they’re always there for us, and Vancouver Coastal took some of our partnered residents here because we were getting saturated for where to move people, so incredible sense of community and that’s what it takes to get through a disaster.”   

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