This is not a column I want to write. This is a column I must write.
Our community is hurting. Every person I see - and I see 40 to 60 patients each day at North Island Community Health Centre - is hurting.
One death is too many. And we have faced way too many more these past weeks.
I struggle to breathe when I see the faces of the young people we have lost.
First, an immediate ask: We need an immediate return to 24/7 coverage at Port Hardy Emergency. Having worked over 50 shifts in that emergency department, I have done more than my fair share of resuscitations of overdoses and alcohol intoxication in Port Hardy. Having talked to senior paramedics, people have died in ambulances these past weeks while being transferred to Port McNeill because Port Hardy emerg was closed. That must no longer be acceptable. We have a readily functional emergency department in Port Hardy - we just need the political will to get it open again.
Having worked in Port Hardy emerg as well as Port McNeill emerg - and having discussed this in detail with my dear friend and colleague Dr. Howie Lee who worked emerg in Port Hardy for over 15 years - it is crystal clear that we have many more patients and more severe illness in Hardy than McNeill. Services should follow need. This is not complicated.
If an immediate return to 24/7 coverage at Port Hardy Emergency cannot be accomplished immediately, I strongly encourage Port Hardy’s mayor and council to declare a State of Emergency in light of our health crisis. We need an open, functioning emergency room.
Port Hardy Mayor Pat Corbett-Labatt has done an exemplary job leading us in this crisis. It should not all be on her. This is a community effort. We heal in community. We solve problems in community.
I have witnessed incredible grassroots leadership these past weeks. Much of it from the amazing matriarchs of our First Nations communities - the aunties, mothers and grandmothers - who have stepped up in this hour of need.
We need to listen to these leaders and the young people they serve. We need to take the services to where they are needed. We need a 360-wrap around view of ‘Accessibility’. Building an office and expecting people to come is not enough. What do our young people need and where do they need it?
What I have overwhelmingly heard in the sacred spaces where I work, is that we need a dedicated, accessible sports-available 24/7 youth centre here in Port Hardy. This past week we have seen ‘pop-up’ organized gatherings of dozens of youth in temporary spaces in our local Indigenous communities that have featured sports, discussion and sharing food. This is harm reduction. The solution is not complicated.
I have committed $100,000 of my own money towards establishing such a space as requested by our youth. While I am a doctor, I am not wealthy - I carry a lot of debt from building the North Island Community Health Centre as well as a new home - but I will move heaven and earth to help our youth in crisis. I sincerely hope our rotary club, lions club, and local leaders will continue to step up as well to make this happen.
As Nelson Mandela said, “Sports have the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire, the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language that they understand. Sports can create hope, where there was once only despair. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down racial barriers. It laughs in the face of all types of discrimination. Sports is the game of lovers.”
I need hope. Our community needs hope. Let’s get it done.
For ideas/topics you would like explored, please email suggestions to: alexnatarosMD@gmail.com or find me online Facebook/Twitter “Alex Nataros MD” Note this is Not for personal medical questions – for these you should present to clinic/emerg or call 8-11.