Food security is top of mind for many people and communities right now. Over the past three years, the COVID-19 pandemic, heat domes, wildfires, floods, inflation, and the rising costs of food have contributed to food insecurity. While all of these factors have been overwhelming, communities are coming together to prove their resilience and are building stronger relationships in response.  In 2021, United Way of BC (UWBC) was looking to support and build on these connections and approached folks across many communities to establish its Regional Community Food Hub program. Seeing the work being done by UWBC, Interior Health reached out to support the Regional Community Food Hubs across the region.

  Aniko Farkas enjoying nature. Photo credit: Brandi Lee Photography Aniko Farkas became a social worker out of her deep-rooted desire to help others. As a sociable, charismatic 35-year-old, she loves her work in both hospital and community settings, and embraces the challenges and rewards of supporting those with physical and psychological injuries. She never imagined she might one day need to call on the kinds of support she was accustomed to providing to others. In August 2020, Aniko witnessed a client's death in the course of her job. The loss of this particular client unleashed the pain from a decade of traumatic events, leading to such psychological damage that she would need more than a year off of work to heal. At the time, Aniko continued to work and told herself she was okay, until January 2021 when it started to become clear that she was not. Aniko (L) and Seija (R) celebrating Seija's “World’s Best Boss” award. Photo credit: Brandi Lee Photography.Seija Emond, who was a team lead at Cedar Sage Health and Wellness (now known as Access) was training Aniko. Seija recognized Aniko was experiencing burnout and pushing herself past healthy limits. Aniko was working many hours in multiple positions, averaging 65-70 hours per week, to avoid thinking about what she had witnessed. While Aniko was continuing to do her job well, Seija began to grow worried about her, and continued to check-in with her. When Aniko notified her team that another client had become unresponsive over the phone, and was calling 9-1-1, Seija left a leadership meeting to support Aniko in working with emergency responders to save the client's life. “I didn’t want you to experience this alone,” Seija said as she comforted Aniko. It's because of Seija’s thoughtful, empathetic and supportive leadership that Aniko felt safe enough to share with Seija that she wasn’t okay when Seija gently enquired about how Aniko was handling burnout. Seija didn’t hesitate to support Aniko in taking the needed time off work. “Originally when I went off work it was for three weeks,” she says. “I couldn’t have predicted then what the next year would look like.” Once Aniko stopped pushing herself to work, and gave herself the space and time she needed to recover, the impact of what she had been through set in. For the first two months, Aniko was exhausted, sleeping up to 20 hours a day. That soon developed into crippling anxiety, with daily panic attacks, nausea, and an overwhelming fear of leaving the house. Her cognition was also affected — she was unable to read or retain information. Aniko and Jaxx. Photo credit: Brandi Lee Photography.Aniko was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with derealization — a state of mind where you feel disconnected from your surroundings and the people you care about. “I experienced dissociation on and off for months,” she explains. “I’d drive to the store and sit in the car to try to be normal, try to be a part of the world. But I wasn’t in it, thinking how do I interact with this world I see?” Slowly and steadily, Aniko began her journey to recovery. The turning point in Aniko’s treatment was being connected with an occupational therapist, who took an incremental approach, listening carefully to Aniko’s experiences and tailoring treatment to her abilities. Each step helped Aniko repair the broken connection between her body and her brain. As her health improved, she began to work with a somatic therapist, who focused on the physical side of recovery. Her support team then began to focus on a gradual return to work. Aniko’s occupational therapist began helping Aniko rebuild confidence in her clinical skills and providing her with the knowledge and tools to manage physiological warning signs. Jesse Giddens, a regional representative from Interior Health’s Enhanced Disability Management Program (EDMP), reached out to Aniko to begin discussing what a gradual return to work could look like. “Jesse was amazing. It was a breath of fresh air when he called. Knowing he was supporting me in going back to work felt incredible. It was like the two pieces connected. WorkSafe and my support team at Interior Health supported me with my leave, then IH's EDMP liaised with my occupational therapist who handled everything with my gradual return to work.” “This was huge because being off work was super scary, and to have someone to take care of what needed to be done, the logistics, planning, training etc.— it was a lot for me to return to work, and they took care of everything. All I had to do was show up. I cannot say enough about how supported I felt and how grateful I am to have had that kind of support in a very difficult time in my life.” Aniko describes the first couple weeks of her gradual return to work as a “shock to the system,” but says things slowly began to fit into place through exposure and routine. She practised her grounding strategies, took breaks when she felt overwhelmed, and used what she’d learned in counselling and occupational therapy to work through her fear and anxiety. Enjoying nature’s ice rink. Photo credit: Brandi Lee Photography.After six weeks of supernumerary shifts, she returned to regular full-time duties in June 2022 — 17 months after she originally went off work. Today, Aniko is a social worker for the Injectable Opioid Agonist Treatment (iOAT) program and the social worker for Kelowna Integrated Court (KIC). She's also in school full-time completing her Master of Social Work through Dalhousie University. Aniko is proud of how far she’s come, and credits her recovery to an amazing team of health practitioners, IH's EDMP, and her steadfast, supportive friends. She also credits the four standout Interior Health staff who supported her gradual return to work and are her “go-to” supports: Carol Overn, Launa Wagner, Kyra Macpherson and Thomas Lait.

Name: Tanya Momtazian (she/her/hers)Job Title: Registered MidwifeYears of Service: 16Worksite: Kootenay Lake HospitalCommunity: NelsonAncestral Territory: Ktunaxa and Syilx. “I live in the Sinixt, Ktunaxa, and Syilx territory of the West Kootenays. Sinixt is not on the territory map because it was declared extinct by the federal government, which has recently been repealed.”Favourite Quote / Advice to live by:  “I enjoy consulting and considering the iChing, an ancient Chinese Book of Changes. It talks about perseverance, harmony, planning, and strategy.” Born and raised in Calgary to a white settler father from Alberta and a mixed ethnicity mother from Trinidad and Tobago, Tanya is the first midwife to join Interior Health’s Navig8 Emerging Medical Leaders Program, which prepares medical leaders to operate effectively in their current and future leadership roles through a mix of action-based learning and mentorship. With a deep passion for patient care, Tanya holds a number of midwifery-related roles while finding time to pursue outdoor activities with her family, and trying her hand at silversmithing and jewelry making.

Do you have a student in your life who’s interested in science, health or writing – or all three?  BC Lung Foundation and Interior Health (IH) have partnered together to launch our first-ever Radon Skill Testing Contest for students in grades 4–8 and 9–12.   This skill testing contest aims to increase awareness of the health risks associated with radon. Students can answer one, or up to four, skill testing questions about radon for a chance to win Beats on-ear headphones, Beats wireless ear buds, or an Alpha Track radon test kit.  Radon is more prevalent in the Interior region than in the rest of B.C. It’s a radioactive gas that accumulates in indoor spaces, and long-term exposure can cause lung cancer. The only way to know how much radon you could have in your home, work or leisure indoor space is to test.  “Not only do we want students to take an interest in this important topic, we want parents and guardians, teachers and school staff to take note too,” says Dr. Silvina Mema, Deputy Chief Medical Health Officer at IH. “We want people to test for radon in their own homes.”

Name: Brandy Hagel (she/her/hers)Job Title: Registered NurseYears of Service: 5 ½ Worksite: Kelowna General Hospital Pediatrics Community:  KelownaAncestral Territory: SyilxFavourite Quote / Advice to live by: “If you put your mind to it, anything is possible.” Brandy Hagel, the registered nurse (RN) from Kelowna General Hospital who took to social media to reunite a pediatric patient with their stuffed bunny, has always loved working with kids. She has also always been the type of person who goes out of her way to make a positive difference in someone’s day.  So much so that in 2017 she combined her passion for running and desire to help others by taking on the challenge of running an ultra-marathon across Haiti to raise money for low-income families. She ran a total of 226 kilometres in just six days!  Naturally, her empathetic, caring nature and desire to work with children ultimately led her to a career as a RN in pediatrics.  “It is so rewarding to know that you are making a positive impact in someone’s day, and kids are the most resilient people I know. I love being able to help them understand that their illness doesn’t define them while we work together to get them healthy again.”  

You can’t see it, taste it or smell it, but radon gas is found everywhere in Canada. Caused by the natural breakdown of uranium in soil and rocks, radon dissipates outdoors but builds up indoors – in homes, workplaces, schools and leisure spaces. Radon gas is radioactive, and is the second-leading cause of lung cancer after smoking. It’s also the most significant indoor air carcinogen for residents of homes in Canada. According to the BC Centre for Disease Control's radon map, an estimated 30 per cent of homes within the Interior Health region are above the Canadian guideline of 200 Becquerels/m3. How do you know how much radon you have in your home? There’s only one way to find out: you have to test for it.  November is Radon Action Month in Canada. We want to introduce you to four people who are working hard to increase awareness of the risks of radon, and to promote testing, management and mitigation. This week meet Nancy Mora Castro, regional air quality coordinator for the City of Kelowna. Since 2020, she has led radon action at the local government level, expanding radon awareness and testing across the Central Okanagan. This month we also featured Greg Baytalan, specialist environmental health officer, and air quality and radon expert. We also introduced you to radon champions and medical health officers Drs. Silvina Mema and Fatemeh Sabet.

Name: Nicole Fournier (she/her/hers)Job Title: Health care assistantYears of Service: 11Worksite: Three Links ManorCommunity: KelownaAncestral Territory: SyilxFavourite Quote / Advice to live by: Live, laugh, love. Since Nicole Fournier was a young girl, she always wanted to be a nurse. She was born and raised on the coast, and has been in Kelowna for over 20 years. She became a health care assistant (HCA) with the plan of getting her start in nursing and eventually become a wound care nurse. However, Nicole found her work as a HCA enjoyable.  In fact, when asked her proudest moment from her 11-years-and-counting career with Interior Health, she answered “becoming a care aide.”

When a health-care professional sees a patient at an Interior Health hospital, it’s important both for the health-care professional to have access to key patient information and for the patient to feel heard and seen. Interior Health has piloted mobile, modern technology at the South Okanagan General Hospital (SOGH) to achieve just that. Interior Health currently accesses shared information about patients through a health information system called MEDITECH. In a hospital setting, workstations on wheels (WOWs) are brought into patients’ rooms so health-care professionals can connect to MEDITECH. The issue is that WOWs are often bulky, hard to maneuver and can be disruptive to sleeping patients. By using MEDITECH’s Expanse Point of Care (POC) technology, health-care professionals can trade their WOWs for mobile devices that can connect to MEDITECH and key patient information. “We could see POC’s potential and the benefits of having a pocket-sized device staff can easily take into a patient's room without disruption,” said Teresa Fortune, the clinical operations manager at SOGH. “It would also untether our clinicians from their WOWs and enable them to spend more time engaging with patients at the bedside.” 

You can’t see it, taste it or smell it, but radon gas is found everywhere in Canada. Caused by the natural breakdown of uranium in soil and rocks, radon dissipates outdoors but builds up indoors – in homes, workplaces, schools and leisure spaces. Radon gas is radioactive, and is the second-leading cause of lung cancer after smoking. It’s also the most significant indoor air carcinogen for residents of homes in Canada. According to the BC Centre for Disease Control's radon map, an estimated 30 per cent of homes within the Interior Health region are above the Canadian guideline of 200 Becquerels/m3. How do you know how much radon you have in your home? There’s only one way to find out: you have to test for it.  November is Radon Action Month in Canada. We want to introduce you to four people who are working hard to increase awareness of the risks of radon, and to promote testing, management and mitigation. This week meet Dr. Silvina Mema, deputy chief medical health officer (MHO), and Dr. Fatemeh Sabet, medical health officer and IH’s school MHO. As medical health officers, Dr. Mema and Dr. Sabet, focus on disease and injury prevention, and health promotion. Both have been closely involved with IH’s Radon in Schools project. This month we also featured Greg Baytalan, BSc, CPHI(C), specialist environmental health officer, and air quality and radon expert. We also introduced you to Nancy Mora Castro, regional air quality coordinator for the City of Kelowna.