Written by Kira Barwich, Research Coordinator
November 2017

We spent last week up in the North Island engaging with communities and continuing fieldwork for the project. Our purpose for this trip was two-fold: to continue our communication with the communities we had previously engaged with, and to further engage with healthcare providers and administration on the North Island to hear of their challenges and vision for sustainable maternity services in the North Island.

Sunrise over Port Hardy [October 2017]

Click here to view the brochure we took back to share with North Island communities last week. The brochure provides project background and context, preliminary findings and next steps for Building Blocks for Sustainable Rural Maternity Care (The North Island Project). 

Jude and Kira are looking forward to continued community engagement in the North Island for the Building Blocks for Sustainable Rural Maternity Care project talking with moms, community members, health care providers, BC Emergency Health Services and health administrators. Developing a framework for what sustainable rural maternity care in the North Island could look like is what we are working on now. With this aim, we are creating a plan by looking at the five community and provider-derived “building blocks for sustainable rural maternity care”. We will continue going back to the community over the course of the project to check back in. As we prepare to travel back up to the North Island for a week in early October, we have reflected on findings from the previous three trips to the community.

We have learned from communities (birthing women, families and elders as well as nurses, physicians and health administrators) what the experience of birth is for women on the North Island.